ML287979181

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - 1

Observation details

A very large white bird with black wingtips/primaries flew in low right over us. It had a long flat beak that later revealed a pouch so it was clearly a pelican. Its large size in body & wing span were impressive in flight & caught us unawares so it was a bit startling. Its flight took it a little to the left of us over land while curving back to settle on the water to the left & out a bit from where most viewing is made from the bank. It immediately began swimming toward the bank stopping about 15 feet from the bank & close to the cleared observation space that I had not yet reached. Without any hesitation, it dipped into the water & pulled out something that later was revealed to be a turtle. While following it, I had been taking pictures & I actually had to tell myself to take "the picture" when it had the turtle in its pouch (revealed by late day sun) & was in the process to begin swallowing it. Right after swallowing the turtle, which we were surprised pelicans even could, it swam across into the middle of several hundred Canada Geese where it found a small log to rest on & process its meal of the turtle. It was fascinating to watch the much smaller geese move out of its way as it swam into their space. After a wilhe, I returned home to phone George Franchois (checklist S2607303) as we did not have a cell phone at that time. We hurried back to watch the pelican along with George who soon joined us until well into dusk. Ten of 15 photos are attached in the order in when they were taken. All were taken from 3:41 to 4:39 PM. "Details" with the photos have the time 5 hours earlier (morning) than the correct time in the afternoon (presumably at some point, I had incorrectly set the time for the hour in the camera & was unaware of it). This sighting appears to be the first recorded for Montgomery County.

Additional species

• Canada Goose Branta canadensis

Technical information

Model

DSC-H1

ISO

64

Focal length

72 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/4.0

Shutter speed

1/125 sec

Dimensions

2592 pixels x 1944 pixels

Original file size

2.26 MB