"Bird's Eye" is what I first called this image.
Pelicans are a common sight from my kayak's cockpit. In Manitoba they populate bodies of water small as an acre and flock to our "Prairie Ocean" Lake Winnipeg.
They are the largest bird in North America.
According to my Peterson Field Guide they are; "Huge water birds with long flat bills and great throat pouches (flat when deflated). Neck long, body robust. Sexes alike. They swim buoyantly and fly with head hunched back on shoulders and long flat bill resting on breast. Flocks fly in orderly lines, and alternate several flaps with a glide, each bird taking the rhythm from the bird ahead."
While descriptive, Peterson's paragraph is diminished at once seeing a long line of these birds soaring impossibly, inches above the water as if some opposing magnetic polarity keeps them "just" airborne.
One then the next flapping in orderly rhythm, each head tucked back and indifferent to this mortal splashing my double blade as their procession passes. My arms wield carbon fiber, clumsy in comparison to feather.
Imitation is not flattery.
Reading further, Peterson describes their wingspan as, "Huge; spread 8-91/2 feet." Just two pelicans span the length of my Sea Kayak on average. I struggle where their wings barely flutter.
White Pelicans, according to Peterson again, do not plunge from the heights to take their prey like their southern kin Brown Pelicans. White Pelicans scoop fish and crustaceans into that "great throat pouch" while afloat.
Turning the tables, I photographed this flock from above as they maintained that regal posture. Buoyant, each in turn slipping into the eddy taking a fish and exiting as the next great bird entered.
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