A Fantastic Start

(January 23rd) I made it down to San Diego, caught a few hours of sleep after the late flight, and then woke up for the first day of shooting. I woke up a bit extra early at around 5am, but managed to be a bit later than I wanted. I thought I'd have loads of time since dawn in Michigan was around 8:15, but here it was 6:30. I still managed to get out to the cliffs before the sun rose, but barely. When I looked around, I felt in heaven. The landscape was gorgeous, and the birds... Well I think this Brown Pelican speaks for itself.

The Brown Pelicans certainly were the main point for coming to this location, but they weren't the only ones using the cliffs. There were two species of gulls that were always around - this Western Gull was one. Just as the sun cleared the horizon, it was one of the first subjects to catch a little bit of the sun.

Trying to learn from past mistakes, my goal here was to fully work the subjects. Not only would I try to take good shots, but I also wanted a wide variety of shots. A head close-up was one variation. Not all of the pelicans are the same. I was trying to concentrate mostly on the adults who have the chestnut-colored back of the neck and lots of red in the beak and pouch.

There were immature birds who hadn't attained the full breeding plumage of the adults. This bird here seemed to have quite an itch. Wings not being suited for the task, what could scratch better than a foot?

In addition to the gulls and pelicans, cormorants also used the cliffs. Most of them took off for the fishing grounds right after sunrise, but they would return throughout the morning. This Double-crested Cormorant was giving its wings a nice shake.

Like I mentioned, I was interested in a variety of different perspectives on the pelicans. As I was walking around before dawn, I saw this pelican sitting on the cliffs below me. I leaned out over the cliffs with my camera to take this shot. I was in luck and managed not to fall onto the rocks below, but I wasn't so sure when I was taking the shot. It was an incredible start to the trip with hundreds of keepers from just a couple of hours. If it keeps up like this, I might fill up my 1TB hard drive for photo storage.