Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - 6
- Behaviors
- Flying
Observation details
Massive white pelicans with black primaries and secondaries, very heavy bodied with slow, deep, powerful wingbeats, lumbering flight style with all 6 staying continuously in a row fairly high above the water. Even at extreme range they clearly lacked the streamlined body shape and motion of NOGA, the only similar-looking species. Very, very distantly photographed and had these been any other species I would never have even picked these up at all at this range. First seen around 1:25 PM by Steve Myers, who was birding from Fort Story. I was driving east on Shore Drive (to go look for the EAGR reported to FB in the area) when he sent out an alert for the birds, so I pulled into the Sandalwood Beach Access and got down to the water quickly. At 1:37 I called Steve to see if they had moved north, and he said they put down on the water off the base. So, I walked east, and around 2:05 I caught them on the wing to the north of the base at extreme distance from where I was on the First Landing beach. Probably the same birds reported flying over Lake Tecumseh (assuming those were also northbound) by Donna McAdams earlier. The group flew north northwest over the bay. Towards island 3 and 4, as best I could tell.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 6D Mark II
- Lens
- EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
- ISO
- 400
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/6.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/800 sec
- Dimensions
- 6240 pixels x 3857 pixels
- Original file size
- 2.63 MB