My first surprise as I drove around the south end of the lake is that the surrounding wetlands were totally dry. All the little inlets and wading areas were reduced to baked bare ground. We have been having the afternoon isolated showers everyday for a week. I would have thought it would have been enough rain to keep water in these flat areas. Huh. Result? No birds where I expected to see lots of birds.
Looking back east across the valley were the Wasatch about to get rain.
As I approached the south end of the Great Salt Lake, I could see bolt after bolt of cloud to ground lightning right where I was headed. There was a lot of cloud to cloud lightning as well. This provided some spectacular views.
My ultimate destination was about 40 miles on the west side of these mountains. Oh boy.
Yes, I ran into rain. Torrential rain. This stretch of I-80 has a speed limit of 75. Everyone was driving faster than that. I finally pulled off as far over as I could get and let all the crazies speed through the rain. It was coming down so hard I could not see where the road was, much less the markings. After five minutes it let up enough to make driving safe again.
Discovered I had miscalculated the distance--it was way west of Tooele, west of Grantsville, and instead of turning left onto Skull Valley Road, headed north on Rowley. Took me quite a while to find the dirt road in, but I figured it out and the rain had quit when I arrived.
Birds? Quite a disappointment. Very few to be seen. However, the area is huge with dikes through it. A bicycle would have been nice to navigate the dikes. No motor vehicles allowed.
I saw Eared Grebes, White-faced Ibises, Least Terns, Cliff Swallows, Black-Necked Stilts, Avocets, California Gulls and of course some small brown birds I have yet to identify.
On my way home, had to pull over for a shot of this local landmark called Lone Rock.
It was a day filled with great skyscapes.
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