Thanks for all the comments; I hope the inside-out beak shot wasn’t too graphic!
The 1st photo was hastily grabbed as the Pelican took off and basically flew down the throat of my lens. The Sun just out of frame high on the right, so the tones are a bit messy as I wrestled with the highlights. Fortunately, the beach sand was acting as a reflector so the underside of the bird wasn’t in deep shadow.
For those interested in the anatomy of the inside of a Pelican’s beak, here is a cropped version showing a little more detail of this amazing structure. I don’t know if the small, dark cylindrical object near the blue vein is some type of parasite?
Cheers
Dennis