Documentary filmmaker Judy Irving (The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill) turns her ornithological eye to pelicans, following a pair of rescued birds—one that stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, and another found with a wing injury on the Central California coast—as a hook for various musings on the creatures that long fascinated her. It’s always clear this is an intensely personal project; Irving’s own narration fills the gaps, and she even names one of the rescued pelicans, against the objections of one worker. And as often happens with intensely personal projects, it appears that Irving doesn’t always see the difference between what fascinates her and what might fascinate her audience. There’s some solid nature-documentary material here—particularly when Irving turns her attention to the pelicans’ breeding grounds on the Channel Islands—but there’s also a randomness to the way Irving grabs at snippets of footage without really finding an over-arching story. Sure, it’s cute watching a pelican explore a house for the first time, but that’s not a movie; it’s a YouTube video you’d forward to your mother. By Scott Renshaw