For me, sunrise with its orange and golden hues is a special time.  But, it's one of the most difficult times to photograph because of the contrast and extreme range of light ... the remnants of the dark of night mixed with the quickly changing bright, golden tones from the rising sun.  A situation with both "not enough light" and "too much light" almost simultaneously depending upon where you point the camera.  A moving subject makes it even more challenging, and birds on the hunt for fish like to move! The trick is to find a balance between two contrary actions: use a fast shutter speed to "stop" the action of the moving birds; and decrease the opening of the lens to prevent over-exposing the image.

In the first four images of this post, I'm pointing the camera in the direction of the sun.  The general color tones of the image are great and make for a dramatic image ... but the fine detail and coloring of the birds is lost.  The subject is said to be back-lit.

1.  Big bird setting up for a landing:

2.  Touchdown!

3.  Looking for fish swimming below the surface:

4.  The big splash as it hits the water:

5.  By way of comparison, this bird is on the other side of the structure I'm standing on ... the same nice soft red light but the camera is pointed away from the sun.  Now the detail of the bird is apparent but at the expense of the very dramatic colors from the sun.

6.  This last image is my favorite of all I took of the California Brown Pelicans this "season."  It is extreme ... the sun is so bright it's reflection has removed all color from the reflection in the water in the upper right hand side of the image; the birds have no detail yet you know what they are doing; and the colors are fabulous!

It's really a pain to get up and out of the house before the sun rises but, if you are lucky, you most often get a really nice reward watching the big light in the sky turn on!

Thank you for taking the time to look.

Adam