The Dalmatian Pelican workshop starts with a bang

The Dalmatian Pelican that was our focus for the next couple of days. That meant we more or less could leave our tele lenses at the hotel because we were now going to get close to these giants.

The Dalmatian Pelican is the largest of the pelicans and one of the largest living bird species. It is considered being the world’s heaviest flying bird even if the largest bustards or swans may be heavier than the largest individual Dalmatian Pelican.

Our aim was to start the day at 8:30 with the first group leaving from the fishermen’s place on the western side of Lake Kerkini. After an hour, they come back and the groups get switched.

We had already decided whom to go first so it was just a matter of eating the breakfast and then arriving on site ready. Sadly I had to leave my wide angle lens at home as I couldn´t fit it into my backpack as it was maxxed.

My group had chosen to let the others go first so we could watch the spectacle for an hour, as well as doing photography ourselves, before it was our turn. It was great fun watching the boat with all the Dalmatian Pelican around it fighting over the fish when it was thrown by the fisherman.

Our turn.

Once in the boat I felt I had an advantage as it wasn´t that long ago that I sat on a rocking boat taking photos of the Shy Albatross. I choosed to sit in the back so I would get a nice overview of both sides of the boat. I think it was a wise choice as I did have a wide angle lens and just the normal zoom 70-200mm to work with.

So how was the boat trip?

Well on one side of the boat there were almost always chaos while it could be really calm on the other side. You had no trouble finding motifs, but the hard thing was to take photos that actually were something to have. Chaos is never easy, but sometimes it can will give you a really interesting shot like this one.

And on the calmer side of the boat you could get nice photos of single Dalmatian Pelicans or even lone fishermen in their boat like in this photo.

I like both the funny Dalmatian Pelican picture, with the poor soul below his brothers and sisters whom are fighting over the fish, and the lone fisherman.

As a picture I rate the fisherman much higher.

I saw the distant boat and wanted to see if I could do anything good out of the scene. I like the big blue emptiness together with the mountain in the distant and how the fisherman is standing there with the oars ready. I think this picture is really good and I will surely try and print it to see how good it turns out on paper or canvas.

In overall it was a really good start to the Dalmatian Pelican workshop and I hope you find pictures of interest in the gallery below.

You can follow these links to see more pictures and read about the days we had at Lake Kerkini.

Lake Kerkini at last
Dalmatian Pelicans day two
Dalmatian Pelicans day three
Lake Kerkini Photo Album

Photo Gallery: The Dalmatian Pelican workshop starts with a bang