Convict Lake, one of the premier fishing lakes in the eastern Sierra Nevada, located just south of Mammoth Lakes. This was taken at 7:30AM and is 2 photos run through the Panorama Factory software.

Mono Lake, just off Highway 395 near Lee Vining, is well worth a visit. Probably the best place to view birds and the surrounding landscape is this platform located at Mono Lake County Park on the lake's northwestern shore. All the photos I took were taken from this vantage point. Even though it's the beginning of August it can still get quite chilly at night as the frost on the walkway shows. The elevation of the lake is currently at 6384.8 feet above sea level.

The lake is all that's left of a huge inland body of water created by the melting glaciers 700,000 years ago. It's 3 times saltier than the ocean, and while it has no fish it's home to brine shrimp and alkali flies which provide rich food for migratory birds. Here's the view from the observation platform looking southeast with the Mono Craters in the distance. Wilson's Phalaropes bob on the windswept surface, and a lone Gull passes overhead.

Wilson's Phalaropes were zipping around in flocks but it was really difficult to get a good angle on them. This was the best of the over 100 "flight flock" shots that I took. These small birds arrive in mid-summer, fatten up on alkali flies then disappear by mid-September to fly to South America. Their journey is 3000 non-stop miles --- in 3 days!!

Chances are most of those California Gulls you see on the beaches were born right here on Mono Lake; after the Great Salt Lake it's home to the largest rookery in North America. Here's a California Gull doing a flyby with the scenic Mono Craters in the background.

Mono Lake has many moods; here it is at around 8PM.

I call this photo "Moon Over Mono". The fabled eastern Sierra light worked its magic here.

More Wilson's Phalaropes going flight manuvers over the lake...

The Phalaropes' flyby background this time includes an example of "Tufa" --- limestone created by the calcium in underwater springs coming in contact with carbonates in the lake. These "grow" exclusively underwater; the reason you see so much of it above the surface is the lake receded dramatically starting in 1941 when Los Angeles diverted the water in its feeder streams, sending it down south.

I like to call this my "Hail Mary" photo. This Green-Winged Teal zipped past me so all I had time to do was to throw up my camera, hear the "beep" indicating focus lock on SOMEthing, then pray that the SOMEthing was the Teal. Well, what do you know--it worked!