OCEANSIDE -- This summer there is a simple question being tossed around by locals who visit the Oceanside Municipal Pier: "Where's Charlie?"

Ed Gonsalves, co-owner of the small bait shop midway along the wooden structure's 1,942-foot length, said the question has been asked over and over again since Charlie, a popular California brown pelican who had hung out on the pier for years, disappeared in early February.

"I get calls all the time with people who say 'Where's Charlie? We miss him,' " Gonsalves said. "I tell them that they (the tourists) finally drove him crazy. I had a customer say that she saw him honky tonking it down at the harbor."

The droves of visitors who descend on the pier between Memorial Day and Labor Day, summer's traditional bookends, have long been drawn to the venerable pelican, with his distinctive orange-and-white neck coloring.

Gonsalves, whose wife, Pam, bought the bait shop about two years ago, said Charlie had been a stalwart entertainer near the shop for at least five years. Though popular, he could also be temperamental, Gonsalves said.

The couple eventually posted a sign on the front of their shop that read "My Name is Charlie, Please Don't Tease Me or I Will Bite You."

Charlie may have brought some of the attention on himself with his regular begging-for-frozen-anchovies routine, they acknowledged. Still, tourists often failed to respect the bird's personal space.

"The tourists would get up real close, and sometimes he would nip at them," Gonsalves said. "Toward the end he was losing his feathers."

These days a group of young pelicans have begun dropping by the site, but none has managed to develop Charlie's popularity, Gonsalves said.

Call staff writer Paul Sisson at 760-901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.