This American White Pelican is a winter visitor to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach California. This behavior is commonly described as "sunbathing" or "wing-drying. They spend winters mainly on coastal waters, bays, and estuaries, or a little distance inland.
The elegant Great Egret is a dazzling sight in many North American wetlands. I captured this gorgeous bird standing in the backwaters at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve near Huntington Beach, California. It was looking for a good catch to eat. Egrets eat small fish but also eat amphibians, reptiles, birds, small mammals and invertebrates such as crayfish, prawns, shrimp, polychaete.
The Brown Pelican is a comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body. I captured this bird feeding in the water at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve waterway near Huntington Beach, California. On the Pacific Coast, Brown Pelican adults have red skin on their throats in the breeding season as you can see by this photo. On the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Brown Pelicans are slightly smaller and their throat skin is greenish black.
