White Pelican Flock. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A flock of white pelicans in flight above the San Joaquin Valley, California
To file in the “learn something new every day” file… this year I learned that the brown pelicans that I so often photograph along the California coastline are not the only pelicans in the state. I had no idea that pelicans could be found inland in the Central Valley, nor that there was another type found here, the white pelican. My first encounter was almost humorous in retrospect. On an extremely foggy morning out in the valley, when birds were audible but often not seen, at one point a small group of mysterious birds floated out of the fog silently, coasted past, and quickly disappeared into the murk. I had no idea what I had seen, but I remember thinking that they looked a lot like pelicans but that they must not be since – wrong! – pelicans aren’t in the Central Valley. Later that day one of my compatriots asked, “Did you see the white pelicans?” I guess I had!
In the area where I photographed this group the primary large birds are Ross’s geese, and there are many thousands of those. There seems to be pretty much a single group of white pelicans and more or less the whole group is visible in this photograph. Here they arrived from the south, again silently floated in over the ponds full of noisy geese, and then dropped down out in the middle of this area where they were too far away to be clearly seen. I was impressed to see so many of them flying together.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
I have lived in Clovis California for 35 years and have never seen a White Pelican until today. There was a group of about 12 swimming and what appeared to be eating at our local pounding basin. I have never seen anything like this anywhere in the central valley. Is it common? Many of us who observed them said the same thing!
I also did not know about them until I started visiting the wildlife refuges a few years back, but since then I have seen them frequently. Maybe you will, too, now!
Dan
Just wanted to stop and say that I love your new header at the top of the page.
Thanks, Jeremy!