ANOTHER WAY

ThE FIRST OILED PELICANS I SAW that spring didn’t look like the ones they put on TV. They looked almost normal at first, but an odd behavioral tic drew your gaze back to them. Then you saw that their belly feathers hung clumped and matted, looking wet, only this was oil.

Feathers protect birds from a world that is by turns too hot, too cold, too wet, too sunny—but oiled feathers can’t do their job. So the pelicans responded the only way they could. They preened, grabbing feather clumps in enormous bills