{"id":97141,"date":"2021-04-15T06:07:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T12:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=97141"},"modified":"2021-04-15T06:07:36","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T12:07:36","slug":"pelican-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/pelican-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelican Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just a little thing I’m having a hard time interpreting.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"97147\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/pelican-surprise\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ron Dudley","camera":"Canon EOS 7D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1618242742","copyright":"","focal_length":"500","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.000125","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"american white pelican 6802b ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-97147 size-full\" title=\"american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6802b-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is the breeding adult American White Pelican I photographed at a local pond a couple of days ago, the one I mentioned yesterday that unexpectedly landed right in front of me with a loud splash. This was the only time I’ve ever seen a pelican on this very small pond that I’ve visited several times nearly every week for about a decade..<\/p>\n<p>The pond is so very shallow ‘he’ couldn’t dip his bill straight down into the water while he was fishing like they usually do so his fishing technique had to be modified. As he was swimming forward he would tilt his head and lay the side of his face and bill on the surface of the water before lowering his head and bill into the water just a few inches. That way the tip of his very long bill wasn’t digging into the muddy bottom while he was fishing.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I’d taken a photo of him with his head tipped sideways and laying flat on the surface just before he lowered it into the water but I never got a good shooting angle on it so I didn’t. Hindsight…<\/p>\n<p>That’s how he fished the entire time I was with him, <em>except<\/em> for his very first attempt at fishing right after he landed on the water and chased away all the nearby Mallards.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"97148\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/pelican-surprise\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ron Dudley","camera":"Canon EOS 7D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1618242648","copyright":"","focal_length":"500","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.000125","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"american white pelicanb 6774 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-97148 size-full\" title=\"american-white-pelican-6774b-ron-dudley.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a>This was that first attempt, the only time he dipped his bill straight down into the water. As you can see something happened during that first attempt that caused an obvious startle reaction – the pelican had a significant physical reaction to something that caused his bill to snap open to an extreme angle and his entire body to jerk.<\/p>\n<p>He may have only been reacting to a fish that his bill encountered but I’ve watched thousands of pelicans fishing and I’ve never seen a reaction quite like this one. And when he lifted his bill out of the water it was obvious that he hadn’t captured anything to eat (which by itself isn’t evidence of anything).<\/p>\n<p>So I have to wonder about another possibility. Maybe as he was swimming forward with his bill lowered far into the water his bill unexpectedly struck the muddy bottom, or perhaps more likely a rock, and that’s what caused his very obvious reaction. I strongly suspect that the pelican had never been on this pond before so he almost certainly didn’t know what to expect down there.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"97146\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/pelican-surprise\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"720,900\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ron Dudley","camera":"Canon EOS 7D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1618242648","copyright":"","focal_length":"500","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.000125","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"american white pelican 6774b tight crop ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-97146 size-full\" title=\"american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelican-6774b-tight-crop-ron-dudley-120x150.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Whatever caused his reaction I’d definitely say that he was surprised by something.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p>At this point you may be thinking, so what? So a bird was surprised, big deal. Birds are surprised all the time. But when I see unexplained things like this in the field I get really, really curious. Experience has taught me to pay attention to the ‘little things’ because doing so can pay dividends in the future for someone who’s as interested in bird behaviors and unique photos as I am.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you had to be there…<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a little thing I’m having a hard time interpreting.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/pelican-surprise\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97148,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3374,5,334,395],"tags":[420,5713,1978,423,5714,311],"class_list":["post-97141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-white-pelicans","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","tag-american-white-pelican","tag-breeding-adult","tag-horn","tag-pelecanus-erythrorhyncos","tag-unusual-fishing-technique","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/american-white-pelicanb-6774-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-pgN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}