One of my favorite birds is the California Brown Pelican. Most of the pelicans I saw last week were showing their breeding plumage like this one diving after a fish near the sunken concrete ship, the USS Palo Alto (enlarge image to see more detail). Not even a second after I took this photo, the bird was completely under water with only a splash marking the spot where it had entered.
The California Brown is the smallest of the pelicans, but its wingspan is still an impressive 7 feet across. I love how prehistoric they look, like small pterodactyls.
