Happy Birthday to Me

I have been hunting the elusive white pelicans for the past four years in hopes of producing one, or maybe if I was really lucky, two images that could be printed in black and white and then handcolored. Several professional photographers have chartered boats and even gone to such extremes as kayaking up to them under white sheets in imitation of their plumage just to get near them. Today the normally super skittish snow birds came practically gift wrapped for me.

Here is just one of the thirty or so raw images I snapped late this afternoon while my kids sat quietly, totally humoring their obsessed mother.