The photographer captured a Northern Gannet, Great Blue Heron, and California Brown Pelican in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California, using a 200‑800mm Canon EF lens. The birds were observed congregating beneath a harbor sign, providing a striking image of wildlife in their natural habitat.
Northern Gannet, in Pillar Point Harbor, CA, US This is Morris. Morris is a local celebrity: the only known Northern Gannet ( Morus bassanus ) in the entire Pacific Ocean.
The photograph captures a California Sea Lion and a Brandt's Cormorant at Pillar Point Harbor in California, USA. While the main subjects are the sea lion and cormorant, the image also reveals a Northern Gannet named Morris peeking out from behind a sign’s base. The scene showcases a diverse group of marine wildlife in a harbor setting.
The article reports that the chicks from this year’s record breeding season of the critically endangered kākāpō have reached juvenile status and have been added to the population count. It notes that in 1995 only 51 kākāpō remained, highlighting the species’ severe decline. The piece underscores that sustained effort can lead to recovery of such endangered species.
Simon Willison comments on GPT 6.1‑Sol, describing it as "Near‑Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price." He notes that the model’s pelican illustrations are similar to those of the GPT‑6 family and provides links to the live‑blog of the keynote and to the pelican images. The post is tagged with AI, OpenAI, generative‑AI, LLMs, and playful references to pelican‑riding‑a‑bicycle.
Simon Willison tested GPT‑6 Astra by generating SVG pelicans riding bicycles at various reasoning levels and compared the results to GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna. The Astra pelicans consistently outperformed the other models, especially at low and xhigh reasoning levels, and even the Astra max version produced high‑quality images. Astra also used fewer tokens and was roughly twice as expensive as Sol, yet its low‑level output was cheaper and superior to any Sol model.