On my last trip to Fort Desoto to look for the white pelicans there were only a handful out on Outback Key. This morning, a few weeks later, I got lucky. There were a few other people milling around the parking lot preparing for the hike to the northern tip but I just got out of my car and took off. I got out on the beach and took a shot and could see a lot of the white pelicans far out in the lagoon. I was not wasting time and started walking.
I took the above with my phone. The sun was already up and I could see tons of the pelicans in the shallow water.
Some were standing in a little water (it was low tide) and some were farther away on a spit. They were all busy preening and I could see white feathers everywhere.
That pesky juvenile reddish egret had to get in on the action. He looks so tiny compared to the bigger pelicans.
About 15 minutes later more white pelicans started fly in.
They just kept coming, flying from behind a spoil island where they probably spent the night. They were piling up together. There were 2 groups of them each on a low tide sandbar. I could see St. Pete beach far off in the distance.
As I was walking up to the farther sandbar the pelicans on the closer one started to float over to the farther sand bar to join their friends. One by one they started floating in a long line across the lagoon.
They just kept piling onto the exposed sandbar, scrunching together to make room for more friends.
They were still flying in from behind the spoil island as well.
It looked like there wasn’t an inch of space left on this spit but they kept coming.
They were still floating from one spit to the other.
They were all crammed together.
And yet there was still more to come.
At this point we were all standing in knee deep water watching the remaining few from the closer spit (that was now covered in water as the tide came in). I think this was a record of white pelicans, at least that I’ve seen. They winter here and move around the area so it’s hit or miss as to whether you can catch this many together at one time.
For the last couple days that we know of, a group of about 80 white pelicans have been hanging out on the north end of Crescent Lake in St. Pete, and others in small groups, or individually, scattered around the lake shore. It was a month and a week ago we saw a similar-sized group on Coffee Pot Bayou near the drain pipe from Crescent Lake at 23rd & Coffee Pot Blvd, where manatees occasionally come and drink, across the street from the huge Pink Trumpet tree currently at its peak of blooming. Yesterday, stopping at Crescent Lake at lunchtime, we watched a small group of them during a feeding episode, with the “cooping” group about half the size as the day before.
Yes! I’ve seen them there. I go to Crescent Lake fairly often. Lots of great things to see in that area.
Oh my goodness; look at how many of them there are!!
Wonderful photos, So very many, I wouldn’t mind standing among them and flapping my arms like wings and then we could all do a dance. After I would throw fresh fish to all of them. As you see I feel very close to nature and love birds and other wildlife,
Nothing like a plethora of pelicans to make a photographer happy!
We got lots of white pelicans here from time to time. They stay on the far side of the Arkansas River away from all the people. They get jumpy if I cross the river and try and sneak up on them.
Incredible! What a huge population of pelicans!!
Wow these images are incredible!
Worth a Thousand Words
Great shots!