A couple of days ago, I somehow found myself with a rare slice of free time on my hands so I opted to fill it with some long overdue and much-needed pelican photography.
I will whole heartily confess it’s been far too long since I’ve sat behind a camera for any length of time for any particular reason, especially on the famous Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route in search of American white pelicans.
And it’s been even longer, much too long, in fact, since I pushed a shutter button with an American white pelican coming off of the water just a few yards in front of me, a sight and photography challenge I hope I never grow tired of.
Birds or not, I love taking pictures of just about anything outdoors to share with you here on this blog but birds are without a doubt the driving force for this website.
Spending time in nature taking photographs is very therapeutic in a roundabout way and the truth is, I have felt emotionally drained as of late with all of the chaos that is in my life right now.
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Both birdwatching and nature photography have always been a never-fail remedy to lift my spirits whenever I needed it so it was nice to get out for a few minutes and just focus on nothing else but taking a few photographs of birds doing their thing, being birds.
Lately, I’ve been having what I would define as “relentless cravings” to head on out on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route to specifically photograph American white pelicans taking off from the water.
So, naturally, when I had this free moment to spend, I grabbed the first camera I could find, (not a hard task by any means as I have far more cameras than I actually need), and lost no time getting out to the refuge auto loop.
Out on the Bear River Bird Refuge, I was able to not only embrace the therapeutic sounds of a camera shutter opening and closing again but I found quite a few pelicans on the auto tour route as well.
Those are three things you’ll see by signing up and following my website that I am quite fond of, cameras, birds, and the refuge, especially when I can come home with a good pelican image or two from the bird refuge like I did the other day.
Simply stated, I have not found a better or easier place to photograph American white pelicans than on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route.
And over the years, I’ve identified 5 specific places on the refuge where I consistently find pelicans during summer that offer fairly close opportunities to photograph pelicans in flight so let me try and describe them to those of you that, like myself, sometimes have the urge to photograph pelicans on the wing like I love to do.
Please keep in mind, however, as with birdwatching in general, sometimes these spots pay off and other times, well, I occasionally do get skunked.
But overall more times than not I come home with pelican images similar to what you see in this particular blog post, all taken from my photography excursion on the refuge a couple days ago.
The best time to find birds of any kind, including pelicans, to photograph on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is early morning and during the middle of the week when the vehicle and visitor traffic is at its lowest point.
Drive slowly around the refuge auto tour route and have your camera settings dialed in and ready to go at a moment’s notice with your camera placed nearby in the passenger seat.
Sometimes I only get a split second or two to grab the camera and fire off a couple quick shots before the pelican, or any bird for that matter is gone for good so having it ready to go in the passenger seat will aid in getting some of those harder to photograph birds.
And in the spirit of readiness, I also do have both my front windows rolled down most of the time as I drive around the refuge auto tour route to save every precious second that I can when a jittery pelican is about to take to the air.
Yes, as crazy as it sounds I even do this during the dreaded mosquito and horsefly season during the hot, dry summer months but only during the early morning hours when it is still fairly cool and far fewer bugs are out and about.
Sometimes these “quickies” are by far my best pelican images of the day and always keeping an attentive eye for what’s up ahead, having the windows rolled down, and the camera sitting in the seat next to me ready to go is some of the best advice I can give anyone new to the bird photography world.
The first place to consistently find pelicans on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge during the summer months, especially on a hot summer afternoon, is on the Bear River itself where it goes through the locks near the maintenance shed.
Pelicans will come here to rest for a while and if you are willing to sit and watch, pelicans can many times be photographed as they casually glide overhead before landing on the river where they will spend much of the afternoon resting and preening on the northern bank of the river.
I typically find more pelicans here in the afternoons than I do first thing in the morning so I always keep an eye out for pelicans at this spot as I am just finishing a trip around the auto tour route.
It is also very common to find pelicans fishing in the waters just below the large locks on the river so keep an eye out as you actually drive over the concrete bridge to the area west of the bridge on the river channel for pelicans fishing in the current right below the locks.
Without question, my favorite and most consistent place to find and photograph American white pelicans in flight is on the first section of the bird refuge auto tour route just after you cross the large concrete bridge by the maintenance shed.
More specifically, the canal that parallels this east-west section of the auto loop is where I get the vast majority of my pelican images.
Pelicans commonly land on this canal to search for fish and even though most of the time I only find one or two pelicans at any particular time, it’s quite common to cross paths with a cooperative pelican on this section of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on almost any given day I drive the auto loop.
I find pelicans along the entire section of this canal, one that stretches along the entire length of this section of the road.
But usually on my travels the most common place I find these beautiful white birds is on the upper section of the canal just after you cross the bridge up until where you come to the first gravel parking lot.
As I drive around the refuge auto loop, the third place I commonly stop and look for American white pelicans is on the southwest corner of the route.
It is marked by a boat ramp and a large gravel parking lot where you can casually pull over and get out for a while to stretch your legs.
On the west side of the road is a canal with a wide section of water where pelicans commonly congregate to fish.
This area is not as close for photography purposes as the previous location but it is one where I routinely find pelicans during the day.
Keep an eye out to the east as well, over the large open body of water as pelicans can be found taking off from the impoundment at various times of the day as they head back to Gunnison Island during nesting season.
Many times the pelicans will fly nearby and even right overhead so keep an eye out for pelicans on the wing all around you in this particular location.
The fourth spot on the refuge auto tour route I routinely find pelicans is on the upper southeast portion of the loop.
Here another canal follows the roadway up to where the road turns back to the north and pelicans can be found all along this canal.
This is also where much of the water in unit 1 flows under the gravel road as it heads out to the Great Salt Lake.
As so, this area sometimes is a pelican hotspot and other times it, well, isn’t, mainly due to how much water is coming out of unit 1.
(American White Pelican Feeding Frenzy. For short nature clips like this one and interesting stories about the natural world around us, check out our Bear River Blogger channel on YouTube for videos and updates from our travels while out in nature.)
When the water levels are low, pelicans will come to hang out for the day and can be quite plentiful just a short distance from the roadway.
But when the water levels are high, like they are now during spring runoff, this area offers far too much open water away from the auto loop road to make photography doable by any means.
So when the water levels are high, even though pelicans still can be found here, I sometimes just drive on by since they are usually too far away for a good photograph.
This area is great, however, when the water levels are very low and the pelicans have less water to fish in and more sandbars to rest on.
Lastly, the section of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route that heads back north to the main parking lot is another spot I commonly find pelicans to photograph.
Here, much like the north section of the auto loop, a canal follows the roadway on the east side all the way back to the parking lot.
There is also a section on the west side of the road where a second canal follows the roadway for a portion of its length, giving opportunities on both sides of the gravel road for a distance to find American white pelicans.
And much like the east-west portion of the auto loop I previously mentioned, this section also offers pretty close proximity to photograph pelicans, but due to this closeness, the successful photographer has to be at the ready since most pelicans will oftentimes take flight pretty quickly as you approach.
I’ve pinned these 5 spots on google maps to help show their general locations but keep an eye out all the way around the auto tour route for not only pelicans but other birds to photograph as well.
Those are the 5 most common places on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route where I find pelicans to photograph.
There are other spots I do find them as well but day in and day out these particular locations are where I find the vast majority of pelicans in easy proximity to the roadway for photography purposes.
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