Pelicans make great subjects for photographers as they are so ungainly and can always be caught doing something funny. My personal favorite is the brown pelican, probably because they are easier to expose, but it is always good to work on those whites. These birds can weigh up to 30lbs and in captivity have lived well into their 30s. This is a wild one preening by one of the inland lakes in North Central Florida.
Hi Gillie, well timed to capture the preening behaviour, and you have brought out the detail on the whites nicely. It is always better to process your images to 1024 wide as per the posting guidelines - it makes it easier to look for the finer points to critique.
I agree with Stuart, you did a great job on the detail on the feathers, they just shine. I would wish for a little better head angle but overall a very nice photo.
Thank you all for the encouraging words. Stuart, for some reason I could not get the post in at a larger size; each time I tried to post it, I had a message saying that the picture was too large. I was posting it from Flickr, as i have done in the past, but maybe I need to work out how to take them straight from my PC.
I think maybe your image was rejected as the file size was more than 250 kb even though the outer dimensions may of been correct, learn to resize in PS and link straight from your computer.
Nicely handled whites and lovely feather detail, ah the advantages of a long long....long bill, you can scratch anywhere lol