An unexpected Pelican

Published: 06/01/2021

Okay so kinda a weird title. But in the sense that I wasn't expecting to photography a Pelican, much less anything really, it was unexpected.

I was out at a local lake on a sunny day at around 2pm when it clouded over giving a nice diffused light. It was windy enough that any heat shimmer blew off pretty quickly yielding decent photography conditions. Almost on cue, two American white pelicans flew in and started to swin by within photography range. I grabbed my lens out of the car and was able to get a few portraits.

I especially like the second pic, framed just tightly enough to show the green at the top from the far shoreline.

Okay, so why was I at a lake on a sunny day at 2pm in the afternoon -- aka the worst photography conditions you could think of? 

Puppy swim practice of course! 

Now that it's warm enough I've been taking my puppy swimming working on some water retrieves with her and trying to build good habits like..."don't drop the damn thing to shake the water off!!". 

I've had some fun taking some pics of her swimming as well; these two were taken about 10 minutes before the Pelicans arrived.

A different kind of photography than I normally post, but fun nonetheless. Plus you never know what wildlife will decide to make an appearance!