High flights of white pelicans had blessed the sky earlier.
Now just a handful out of all the hundreds
rested on the far bank of the saltwater marsh.
Their brown cousins preferred the more open spaces of
the shore and the bay.

Avocets, grebes and countless ducks harvested the water.
Coots kept up their soft chatter while a great white egret watched
solemnly from the edge of the reeds.

A group of cormorants sunned themselves on a long-abandoned pier, their
harsh guttural calls like the grunting of pigs loud on the birdwalk.

"There's an alligator!" shouted the boy.

On one side of a small sand bar, the alligator warmed himself in the sun,
head raised and mouth open. On the other side of the sand bar,
a cormorant sat alone at the water's edge.

"What's the matter with that bird?" asked one of the men.
"Gator's gonna get him."
"Maybe he already did," said another.

Guessing the outcome, several people moved farther out on the birdwalk,
closer to the ducks and grebes.
The whistling of the tree ducks drew some
to climb the birdwalk's tower to see deeper into the reeds.

The sick cormorant struggled to get back into the water while the alligator,
basking, ignored it.
The bird, sitting low in the water as her kind does,
swam with great effort toward the birdwalk,
slowly rolled over and gave herself back to the marsh.