{"id":23377,"date":"2014-04-22T06:15:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T12:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23377"},"modified":"2014-04-22T06:15:56","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T12:15:56","slug":"pelicans-and-a-fish-too-big-to-swallow-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/22\/pelicans-and-a-fish-too-big-to-swallow-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans And A Fish Too Big To Swallow – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several of these pelicans had eyes bigger than their stomachs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

We spent yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0 Just before the entrance to the loop road we found a group of American White Pelicans lounging just after\u00a0sunrise\u00a0in a spot that has become traditional for them over the years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At first the scene appeared peaceful enough but that mood didn’t last long.<\/p>\n

Note: the rest of these images are sidelit and contrasty so I processed them globally and quickly which will likely be obvious\u00a0to some.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

When one of the pelicans scooped up a very large dead carp that had apparently been floating on the surface of the water\u00a0the tension quickly began to build as other birds\u00a0quickly moved in to investigate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are\u00a0two other pelicans\u00a0just out of frame to both the left and to the right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

The pelican tried desperately\u00a0to swallow the carp but it just wouldn’t go down.\u00a0 I have many shots similar to this pose as the bird tried to utilize gravity and a straight angle from pouch to esophagus to swallow the fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

The other pelicans were relentless but patient (at first) in putting pressure on the “owner” of the carp.\u00a0 Here that bird is attempting to swim away from its competitors with the fish still in its pouch.<\/p>\n

Note: The epidermal plate or “horn” rising vertically from the upper mandible\u00a0may not be familiar to some but it’s a normal feature of the species.\u00a0 The horn is shed after breeding season.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

Eventually the pressure apparently got to the pelican with the fish and it seemed to panic in all the excitement…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

and\u00a0dropped the carp into the water…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

but quickly retrieved it.\u00a0 At this point it became apparent that the carp was headless.\u00a0 I can only guess as to why.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the pelican with the fish held its wings out in an apparent attempt to…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

fend off the other birds as it made one more attempt at swallowing the carp.\u00a0 Once again it failed and the carp was abandoned in the water for a few minutes before another pelican picked it up and then things got even more interesting.<\/p>\n

But there’s far\u00a0too many images to tell the entire story in a single post so I’ll conclude with “part two” tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n

Ron.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several of these pelicans had eyes bigger than their stomachs<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,334,392,424],"tags":[420,38,49,74,141,1978,423],"class_list":["post-23377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-pelicans","tag-american-white-pelican","tag-avocet-eating-a-fish","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-carp","tag-fish","tag-horn","tag-pelecanus-erythrorhyncos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/american-white-pelican-5308-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-653","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}