White Pelicans, Fog. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A small flock of white pelicans at rest in wetlands as sun rises on a foggy morning.
As I have written before, the existence of white Pelicans in California came as a surprise to me a few years ago. I was long familiar with the brown pelicans that skim along the coastal shoreline and occasionally land close-in. But I was so unaware that the white variant lives around here that the first time I photographed them — at a distance, though fog, with intense backlight — I misidentified them as another entirely different bird, making an error that seems obvious in retrospect. They are all over the place, flying over coastal bodies of water, settling on inland ponds, and more.
I spotted this group on a foggy morning in a spot where I’ve seen them many times before. Here a small group of perhaps up to a few dozen individuals often hangs out at a safe distance and, if I’m lucky, may decide to take flight and pass over my position. On this morning the smaller group was huddled close together out in the pond, partially obscured by thinning tule fog and softly light from the low-angle early morning sun.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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