Tag: American White Pelican

Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White.

David M6 Comments

My contribution to the Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White.

Now I will admit that my first thought was snow but after a winter that dragged on for what seemed like 6 months I didn’t want to think about snow.

So I decided to go with a selection of photos of bird species that are mostly white, the first two have white in their common English name.

White-breasted Nuthatch, Saskatchewan, Canada.

White-breasted Nuthatch

American White Pelican, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Breeding adult American White Pelican

Caspian Tern with fish on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario, Canada.

Caspian Tern with catch.

Black-headed Gulls in winter, Cheshire, England.

Winter plumage Black-headed Gulls.

Snow Geese on autumn migration, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.

A gathering of Snow Geese.

Whooper Swan portrait, Lancashire, England.

Portrait of a Whooper Swan.

For the Love Of…..

David M10 Comments

Bird Photography.

This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is For The Love Of..….

After rejecting the first couple of ideas for the challenge I thought about some of the various situations I have been in photographing birds.

A young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the rain in Ontario, Canada. The camera and lens was covered to keep the rain off but the photographer wasn’t.

In the rain.

A male Common Kingfisher photographed from a small, cramped and hot canvas hide (blind) in Cheshire, England.

Male Common Kingfisher.

A Bohemian Waxwing photographed at -30°C in Saskatchewan, Canada.

A Bohemian Waxwing at -30°C.

An American White Pelican with a large fish in its pouch. Photographed while sitting in the water to keep cool on a hot and very humid day in Saskatchewan, Canada.

American White Pelican with fish.

A female Common Merganser with a youngster on her back. Taken in Ontario, Canada while being swarmed and bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes.

Hitching a ride.

A male White-breasted Nuthatch photographed in Saskatchewan, Canada. Another -30°C day with some light snow falling this time.

White-breasted Nuthatch

A portrait of a female Wilson’s Phalarope taken while lying in sand mixed with wildfowl poop on the shoreline of a section of Little Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Female Wilson's Phalarope.

Delicious.

David M18 Comments

The new Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is Delicious.

My initial idea was for the various caterpillars, spiders and assorted other insects being fed to young birds by their parents.

Then it occurred to me just how many shots of birds and mammals feeding I had in my archives. So I decided to expand on the original idea with a selection of six different feeding behaviours.

First, an American Red Squirrel feeding on seed in the grass in Ontario, Canada.

Feeding American Red Squirrel.

An adult Eurasian Blue Tit feeding young with a green caterpillar in Cheshire, England.

Feeding the young.

A Bohemian Waxwing eating a berry at -30°C in Saskatchewan, Canada.

A Bohemian Waxwing at -30°C.

A Black-throated Blue Warbler pretending it’s an Oriole by feeding on the grape jelly in an Oriole feeder in Ontario, Canada.

Male Black-throated Blue Warbler.

An American White Pelican with a large fish in its pouch in Saskatchewan, Canada.

American White Pelican with fish.

Finally, an adult Great Crested Grebe feeding one of its own breast feathers to its young in Cheshire, England.

Adult Great Crested Grebe with young.

Good catch.

David M2 Comments

An American White Pelican with a large fish in its pouch. One from the archives, photographed on Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan in the late 1990s.

This part of Ontario is under a heat warning at the moment which got me thinking about photography in hot weather. That made me think of a hot afternoon in Saskatchewan when I set up a tripod in a channel where a marsh drains into a section of Last Mountain Lake. I sat in the water behind the camera. There was a group of American White Pelicans fishing in the channel. They would swim in the direction of the water flow before flying back to the start of the channel and repeating the fishing expedition.

This breeding adult looks a bit grumpy despite the size of the fish it has caught.

American White Pelican with fish.

Surrounded by bubbles.

David M2 Comments

The Daily Post one word prompt is Bubble.

An American White Pelican surrounded by bubbles. The Pelican is one of  a group fishing in a channel where a marsh drains into a section of Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan. There is a sluice gate to regulate the water level in the marsh which is causing the bubbles in the water.

The horn on the Pelicans bill shows it is a breeding adult.

Breeding adult American White Pelican

Last Mountain Lake.

David M12 Comments

The new Weekly Photo Challenge is Favorite Place.

I was considering a few locations until I thought of Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan.

I was never sure why it’s called Last Mountain Lake as it’s on the Canadian prairies with no mountains anywhere close by. It’s also known as Long Lake. The photos were all taken around the north end of the lake which is shallow with wetlands. It’s the location of the Last Mountain Lake Bird Sanctuary, the first federal bird sanctuary in North America.

An American White Pelican in the summer.

American White Pelican, Saskatchewan, Canada

A section of the lake at sunset in the autumn.

Last Mountain Lake at sunset, Saskatchewan, Canada

A flock of Snow Geese on autumn migration.

Snow Geese on autumn migration, Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada

A frozen section of Last Mountain Lake in winter.

Last Mountain Lake at sunset, Saskatchewan, Canada