The big birds always want to land in the middle of the others. When you think there’s no room, they find a spot. Landing is when a big bird is most vulnerable, safety in numbers here.

This looked like a miscalculation though.

He was coming down nice at first. Perfect spot right there.

Overshot the mark and now the big pull up.

Finally the landing zone was up ahead of all the others.

We probably watched 20 landings in the morning, this was the only miss.

White Pelicans, ACE Basin.