White Pelicans are commonly found along the major rivers, lakes, and wetlands in the Midwest. Unlike their coastal cousins, the Brown Pelican, the whites will usually fish in groups and don’t dive deep into the water. Their float and dip approach is much less dramatic, but pretty effective.
The throat pouch that they have is quite large and can hold some awfully big fish. To catch them they’ll simply float along and hold their beak down into the water. If they feel contact with a fish, they’ll try to bag it in the pouch and pull it upward…raising their beak high to swallow it whole. With respect to their seemingly abundant numbers and healthy build, it seems to be working well for them!
Photographically, this image was kind of important for me. It shows a pelican coming into land among the waves and turbulent waters created by a large dam on the Mississippi river. Pelicans will do a lot of fishing here in the summer months and will often fly up towards the dam, then float downriver for a ways, then fly up to the dam again. This routine process is great for getting some nice shots of them…and in this particular case, testing some new equipment out. Because of the results like this and a number of other photos that day, I made the switch to the Olympus system and have shot with their equipment ever since.