I was out of the house this morning and on my way to Deer Creek Wildlife Area at 4:45 this morning. I drove the hour down there, walked the half mile to the spot I wanted to shoot from, and got set up before 6:30. It was still pretty dark but I could see a couple of large white birds on the other side of the marsh, I thought they were probably mute swans and was not too interested in them. When the light improved I took another look at the white birds and to my extreme surprise I realized the were actually pelicans! I did a little research when I got home and found these pelicans are out of their normal range; way out. White pelicans are normally found east of the Mississippi river only along the gulf coast and Florida.
They were ravenously feeding on what I think were probably bull frogs, the marsh completely dries up some years so I am not sure there are many fish in it, bull frogs are extremely plentiful. I was at the marsh for about 3 hours and they never came very close, the pictures came out pretty good considering they were at about 150-200 yards.
The gold finch was shot at Fallsville Wildlife Area a bit later this morning.
