Salton Sea

Today, we went looking for birds at the Salton Sea east of Palm Desert, CA. It's an amazing place that was created to hold the irrigation runoff from the surrounding desert farmland. My grandparents used to weekend out there, but today it would be a terrible place to camp or holiday. It is a valuable bird sanctuary, but you can imagine the pollution that flows into the lake from the surrounding farms. There are dead fish all around the lake (see the "here" photos below). if you want to read more about the problems this causes for the animals this is just one website: International Bird Rescue Center

I just could NOT decide between this photo and the first one here.

We saw brown pelicans, an ibis, white pelicans, every kind of heron and egret imaginable, terns, an osprey, and birds I can't identify. Some of them are here.