10.09.2009

Pelicans on the Lake

Pelican activity on the lake has increased this week for both great white pelicans, such as the one that graces our state flag, and also for the brown pelican.
They have very different ways of hunting- the brown pelicans hunt alone or in "squadrons" flying low and then high and crashing straight down into the water, to catch fish as they dive down into the water with their beaks open.  The great whites, hunt in "rafts" as a group and flap their wings and beaks to run fish into the shallows or to each other and then scoop them into their pouches together as a collective.. hence the original state motto Non Sibi Sed Suis- not for oneself, but for one's group or one's own.... In the 7 years that I have been photographing along the causeway- and for my life lived in Louisiana.. I have never seen as many rafts of white pelicans feeding in the lake as I have this week.