Sunset with California Gulls
June 14th, 2009 by Arya, Communications Director
I love the fact that even after 12 years of living at Mono Lake I still see new and amazing things. This time it was a sunset from the northwest corner of the lake. Light was beaming down out of Lundy Canyon, out across the lake, and into the millions of shades of blue of the stormy evening sky. The lake itself was still, and as I glanced up I could see California Gulls glowing like tiny stars dotting the surface of the lake. At first they were just immediately out in front of me–all spread out like kids doing stretching exercises in gym class. But then I could see them way off to the south … and around Black Point to the east … all the way up to Negit and Paoha islands and to every shore and every stretch of water I could see in between … dotting the entire surface of the lake. I thought, “so this is what 40,000 looks like.”
Truthfully, I have no idea how many gulls were out there … it looked like the fall when the Eared Grebes settle in … but they were definitely gulls, and all spaced out–not in their usual pods or tumbling flocks–over what seemed like the entire lake surface. It was so striking–thousands of bright white birds bobbing in the sea of blue sky and water.
As with the best things it was both spectacularly beautiful and simultaneously curious. I’ve never seen anything like it here before, and of course didn’t have the camera with me. I do wonder what was going on that they were so spread out like that. I headed south along the west shore and looked back to see if I could still see all of the gulls, but I could barely see any now that I was looking at them on their shadowed side … maybe they do this often and I’ve not yet been in that perfect spot to see it. It was so vivid that I’ve already thought of many times since seeing it and thought I’d just send it out to the wonderful readers of The Mono-logue.
