Big surprise, a pelican in January

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As mentioned yesterday we had ideal shooting conditions at lock and dam #14 in LeClaire, Iowa at the Mississippi River. It is always depending what direction you point the lens but in some instances the sky appeared in an almost unreal blue. I don’t tinker with colors in my wildlife photography and in that regard it’s true WYSIWYG what you see here in the blog or elsewhere.

I enjoyed the company of our friends Jeanne and Dave at dam #14. It is nice to shoot together with someone who has the same or similar interests and Dave likes to make photographs about nature, farm buildings and equipment, as well as portraits. He writes about different aspects of life and posts his photos in a blog almost every day, check it out if you like.   http://updedesignsblog.com

It was the first time that I saw an American White Pelican in January here in Iowa. Burt Gearhart, the photographer who made a presentation about the wildlife around LeClaire yesterday, had some pictures of pelicans in his slideshow and it was new to me that they come up that far north during the winter. What a pleasure to see that majestic bird flying in!!! I know most of my American friends have a biased view if it comes to the Bald Eagle, the National bird of the United States, but hey, the pelican isn’t bad either… ;-) I can watch them soaring for hours with their incredible wing span of up to 110 inches (bis zu 2,79 m) and never get tired of it. The pelican’s fishing frenzy has been documented a few times here in the blog ( http://exnerimages.com/?s=pelicans ) but making this photo of a single pelican in flight in January here in Iowa is priceless… :-)