Wednesday 7 February 2007

King of Rhyll

King of Rhyll


This shot was taken at Rhyll as the title had suggested. We were on our back to the car when one of the members yelled at pointed up towards the sky. There was this big pelican sitting on top of a lightpost at the beach. So now, 20+ photographer and camera pointing at the bird and snapping away. I had shot this image using my 50mm lens. The colour of the sky was original and the picture had only been slightly adjusted.



A pelican is any of several very large water birds with a distinctive pouch under the beak belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae. Along with the darters, cormorants, gannets, boobies, frigatebirds, and tropicbirds, it makes up the order Pelecaniformes. Like other birds in that group, pelicans have all four toes webbed (they are totipalmate). Modern pelicans are found on all continents except Antarctica.

Pelicans can grow to a wingspan of three meters and weigh 13 kilograms, males being a little larger than females and having a longer bill.

Pelicans have two primary ways of feeding:

  • Group fishing: used by white pelicans all over the world. They will form a line to chase schools of small fish into shallow water, and then simply scoop them up. Large fish are caught with the bill-tip, then tossed up in the air to be caught and slid into the gullet head first.
  • Plunge-diving: used almost exclusively by the American Brown Pelican, and rarely by white pelicans like the Peruvian Pelican or the Australian Pelican.
(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

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