Saturday morning, when I took the Blossoms and Bugs photos, I also took my long lens in hopes of getting a few shots of the pelicans, since there have been lots of them around, as there were that morning. There was a group on a sandbar out in the middle of the river busy preening.
Pelicans are one of the biggest North American birds, depending on how you measure. They have the second longest wingspans, next to the California condors, which gives them great soaring abilities.
They come to the weir to feed, but often only a few will be actually feeding. The rest will just be hanging out, often on the end of the big sandbar above the weir, or on the smaller sandbar below. They seem to tolerate people fairly well, even the people fishing right beside the weir (where they're not supposed to). Sadly, I have seen a couple of pelicans entangled in fishing line as a result.
There weren't enough of them feeding to get in a circle like they sometimes do.
I think it looks like this next one got a fish.
Most of them had the "horns" that they develop in breeding season. The ones without I'm guessing are juveniles?
These were taken with the Nikon D7200, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary, and Jobu Designs gimbal head and monopod. It was a nice sunny morning so most of these are at 1/1000 sec.
With this post I'm finally caught up on processing and posting photos, thankfully!
For more of these, see all 11 photos as a slideshow or overview
Pelicans are one of the biggest North American birds, depending on how you measure. They have the second longest wingspans, next to the California condors, which gives them great soaring abilities.
They come to the weir to feed, but often only a few will be actually feeding. The rest will just be hanging out, often on the end of the big sandbar above the weir, or on the smaller sandbar below. They seem to tolerate people fairly well, even the people fishing right beside the weir (where they're not supposed to). Sadly, I have seen a couple of pelicans entangled in fishing line as a result.
There weren't enough of them feeding to get in a circle like they sometimes do.
I think it looks like this next one got a fish.
Most of them had the "horns" that they develop in breeding season. The ones without I'm guessing are juveniles?
These were taken with the Nikon D7200, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary, and Jobu Designs gimbal head and monopod. It was a nice sunny morning so most of these are at 1/1000 sec.
With this post I'm finally caught up on processing and posting photos, thankfully!
For more of these, see all 11 photos as a slideshow or overview
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