Great Salt Lake Flock

To get to Antelope Island, you have to drive across this long causeway that cuts across the Great Salt Lake. The causeway is a great bird watching location, with lots of birds gobbling up the Brine Flies.

A quick word about Brine Flies. There are lots of them at the Great Salt Lake. Lots is an understatement. They are everywhere. If you follow this link, you can read all about Brine Flies and the estimate of a billion Brine Flies during the summer peak at the Great Salt Lake. As annoying as they are, they are an abundant food source for the birds. And, even better...they do not bite. Thank goodness for that.

Back to my post. While I was birding my way across the causeway, I witnessed a flock of birds in the distance. The flock was very coordinated. I am struggling to describe the flock's behavior in words. It was like a ribbon of fabric that was flapping in the wind, except the fabric in this case was made up of hundreds of birds. I took some pictures of that flock as it undulated over the Great Salt Lake. Here is one that I cropped to be very wide, but fairly short, in an attempt to accentuate that flock of birds. I think you can click the picture to get to different (larger) sizes if you want a closer look.