Pelicans, Loon, Peacock Day three of fishing in BC (20130520)

Up early again, we have been getting up having a leisurely cup of tea and reviewing the weather before packing up for the day's outing. We grab brekkies at Rotten Ronnies then head off to the "lake of the day". Today we are off to a lake that we have fished often in the winter, but minimally in the summer, rumours of four pounders had us optimistic. Upon arrival we were greeted by a small group of these majestic birds.

Apparently these birds visit this area for a couple of weeks ever year before heading out to, you guessed it, Pelican Lake. As we cruised this particular lake we found an eagles nest, A Cinnamon Teal and a pair of Barrows. The American Pelican can stand four feet tall and have a wingspan of 10 feet.

This is the only pelican specie that grows the horn on the upper bill, it falls off after the breeding season.
There were hundreds of swallows in and around the bull rushes and many Red Winged as well, among the swallows was this Black Tern, not a very good image, but they are tough birds to capture well.

With a bit of good fortune we were able to get in tight with this Common Loon. These are usually birds that are not very tolerant, perhaps with a fair amount of "local traffic" it has become a little more accustomed to being approached by boats.

We spent about 5 minutes with this fellow. Ken had quite a time keeping me in position at the front of the boat. He was a real trooper!

Even with the overcast skies and poor light these are part of the best series of loon shots I have been able to get so far.

As we came into the landing there was this bachelor group of 7 birds, can you spot them all?

The surprize of the day was coming across this Peacock. I was certain I could hear one calling while we were out on the water.

Back at the ranch I managed to rustle up a couple of late shots of this Rufous Hummer.

These shots were taken at very high ISO, so they are very grainy.

This is the final post from this past weekend, just in time to get out for another round of tracks. Here is hoping that the weather cooperates a little as the current forecast is for nothing but rain.
Have a super wildlife week.
Turbo