My Turk & Caicos Wildlife Safari

It all started with this hungry pelican...

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Our goal was to see how long we'd go (the beach shoreline is about 4 miles long (?) The pelican became our guide through the dangerous beach.

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The pelican was on a hunt and in so doing made for very close encounters.

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My buddy in this mission.

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As I said earlier, dangerous wildlife was everywhere.

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The pelican like a robotic kite kept maneuvering in front of us, egging us on.

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At this point he had just dived in. Enjoying his catch.

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Time to move on (he kept doing it until we were both satisfied - him with the meal and me with the photos.

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The shutter-lag is pretty bad on this otherwise fine camera (more details later on the narrative. So first attempts were frustrating with catching the bird too late.
Here the pelican just dove in.
It was amazing to see how this usually slow wandering bird can become a dart-like missile when diving for fish. Stick around see if I can catch him in mid air.

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Big and in his own way majestic (in an ugly sort of way) - you'd never guess horsepower hiding under that calm exterior.

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Here he was moving pretty fast but still cruising. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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Waving to one of his admirers

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She was just as interested as I was.
O yeah and the pelican did another dive.

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Munching

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Finally!
There he is - like an arrow or a huge dart at very high speed diving to catch a fish

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plop! - he got the fish

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I can almost imagine him using a toothpick at this point

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Check out how big his belly is now. - - Compare with earlier shots.
He got what he wanted (multiple fish) and I finally caught him in action.
(The best under the circumstances)

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Waving good bye?

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Capturing the pelican right at the point of impact entering the water turned out to be a challenge because of shutter lag (delay). The only camera with fresh batteries in it was a Nikon 8700 at this time my backup. A DSLR-look-alike/wannabe that was a flagship in its day of transitioning digitals, but can't compete with today's true DSLRs (D40 - D300) in terms of shutter release delay and of course no choice of glass. An excellent little magnesium bodied camera nevertless that I've passed on to my youngest daughter Jesz (12) so she can learn about Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority modes and get ready for a DSLR. It was fun and good exercise tracking the Pelican over 2 of the 4 beach miles. Thank God he took frequent breaks (digesting after each dive) so we could keep up with him (flying) while we hoofed it on the sand. I want to do this again using my 18-200mm 3.3 AF VR-II. Itself a beauty. NOTE: March 2013: This was 5 yrs ago. "Today" above meant 2008 - lol. A whole lot of developments with digital cameras since. I've stopped using film altogether and long retired the D40. In between some models I eventually settled on the D90 for a while and a year ago moved up to the D800E. Would love to recreate this again. Both for the fun I had in the beach and for the shots. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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Think is a gull?
It isn't - see below.

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I dont shave when I'm on vacation - I call it my pirate look, my wife calls it something else.

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After following the Pelican for 2 miles on foot on the beach, and going another 2 miles exploring I ran into other types of wildlife. Would these "natives" (which turned out to be from Rhode Island) be friendly? -- As you can see by the smiles (specially mine) it was a very friendly encounter. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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Here I am totally surrounded [ Turks & Caicos ]

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Proof we were on foot.

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Up on a hill facing the ocean

At one point in the beach we had to scale some rocks (temporarily ran out of shoreline sand to walk on)... at the top of one of some of the rocks we found this. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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The house in the previous shot can be seen sideways in the background. You can see as you approach the house you run out of shoreline and have to climb the dark rocks... hence the previous photo. It wasn't always fun barefooted. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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Did I mention I was attacked?... o yes I did already. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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The photo looks fake but it is real (just poorly taken). My buddy loves to do this and this is is how he does it: he first gets an exposure for him (or in this case me) and then points to the setting sun. The camera didn't cooperate and refocused. Anyway ignoring my mug, it's a beautiful shot of the ocean and sun. [ Turks & Caicos ]

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The beach was surrounded by wildlife - (write your own caption here)

After such an adventure, I jumped in the pool when I returned to civilization...

THE END

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