I have been looking forward to sharing this amazing sequence of photos. This photographic technique is what I like to call “laying on the shutter.”

I’ve talked before about the American White Pelican‘s (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) gular pouches. These gular pouches are vital to the pelican’s ability to capture food – so it makes sense that they take very good care of them.

According to this range map, many Americans have an opportunity to see these “wow” birds:

Global Range: >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)

Global Range Comments: BREEDING: locally, now primarily in Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), also adjacent eastern British Columbia and western Ontario, south through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, and Minnesota; also coastal Texas and coastal Tamaulipas; sporadically in Durango, Mexico (Johnsgard 1993, Evans and Knopf 1993). Over half of the breeding population nests in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. NON-BREEDING: Florida, Gulf of Mexico coast to Tabasco and Yucatan, and central California south to southern Baja California and west-central mainland Mexico, sometimes south to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica (AOU 1983, Evans and Knopf 1993). In North America, the highest winter density occurs in southern Texas (Root 1988); other important areas include the Gulf coast and Everglades region of Florida. In summer, sometimes wanders north of usual range.^{1 2 3}

I’ll leave you with a video that I saw a couple of years ago.  At the time, I was aghast, but now I find it more fascinating than anything else. Fair warning – this is is footage of a very rare occurrence of a pelican eating a pigeon!

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