Got any bird pics?

[Gyrfalcon22]

Steve, great thorough reports we've come to expect and enjoy I think I can say for all. I believe you'd be the very top choice to jump in a time machine and join the Lewis, Cabezon and Clark expedition !!! That is only if you haven't been beamed to the Galapagos first, or Cousteau hasn't pulled rank.

Great stuff ! Question, what fish are in the Salton Sea beyond talapia?

 

[Cabezon]

Steve, great thorough reports we've come to expect and enjoy I think I can say for all. I believe you'd be the very top choice to jump in a time machine and join the Lewis, Cabezon and Clark expedition !!! That is only if you haven't been beamed to the Galapagos first, or Cousteau hasn't pulled rank.

Great stuff ! Question, what fish are in the Salton Sea beyond talapia?

The ichthyofauna of the Salton Sea is a complicated (and interesting question). The Salton Sea prehistorically served as a river delta for the Colorado River into the Gulf of Mexico or as a dry plain that filled and dried out repeatedly over the last 1,300 years (see here). It lies at the southern edge of the San Andreas Fault, the contact zone = transform fault between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate after the Farallon Plate was subducted under the North American Plate [The Juan de Fuca Plate/s off our coast are the northern remnants of the Farallon Plate.] and the spreading center (East Pacific Rise) that is driving northwestern movements of the Pacific Plate vs. the North American Plate. The Gulf of Mexico separates Baja California from the mainland. The Gulf of Mexico first appeared about 5 to 10 million years ago due to a spreading center extending from the East Pacific Rise; the divergent spreading center extends north up to just south of the Salton Sea at present. There are several geothermal power plants along the southern shore of the Salton Sea that tap the warm water generated by the new crust forming in this region.
The present incarnation of the Salton Sea as a lake begins in 1906 when an irrigation canal from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley failed. For two years the entire volume of the Colorado River emptied out of the canal and flowed into the dry depression that had been the pre-historic Salton Sea. This created the largest lake in California (30 miles long). After repair of the canal, the sea was the dumping area for excess irrigation water from expanding agriculture in the Imperial Valley and Coachella/Mecca area. [If you can't dump irrigation water somewhere, salts and heavy metals like selenium build up in the soil.]. The Salton Sea is 200 feet below sea level and the easy dumping area for the farms around it. In the 1950's and 60's, the area became a resort destination. But as the farmers have become more efficient with their use of limited irrigation water, the lake has shrunk and become more saline. The irrigation water carried residual salts (and pesticides and fertilizers) that were present in the soil into the lake where the water then evaporated.
One of the fish species that predates the inundation of the Salton Sea is the desert pupfish, Cyprinodon macularis. These are killifish (Cyprinodontiformes) that inhabited seeps and spring in the Lower Colorado River in Arizona and California. They are hardy fish that can survive high temperatures and salinities, and low oxygen levels. But they are also critically endangered due to modifications of the springs / seeps that they depend on and the introduction of non-native species.
These pictures are from an artificial pond in Anza Borrego State Park near Borrego Springs.


Archeological studies of Native American middens around the edge of the lake indicate that the tribes harvested some of the fish characteristic of the Lower Colorado River such as razorback suckers and bonytail chubs.
At present, only Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) survive at the current salinities of the main lake (the pupfish are found in the marshes around the margins). Tilapia is a cichlid, a member of a freshwater fish family that is found in rivers and lakes in Africa (e.g., mouth-breeding cichlids from the Rift Lakes) and South America (e.g., discus, peacock bass). But if current trends continue, the Salton Sea will become too saline for this species too. [Tilapia have been introduced around the world, including to isolated Pacific atolls. A scientist friend of mine was doing research [DOD disposal of chemical weapons by combustion] at Fanning Atoll (aka Tabuaeran, part of the nation of Kiribati in the Line Islands) told me that missionaries introduced tilapia into the lagoon as a food source. He described seeing tilapia exiting the lagoon through channels to feed on the coral reef, while reef sharks would enter the channels to feed on the tilapia in the lagoon.]. The last big year for tilapia fishing in the Salton Sea was 2007 and the numbers have declined since then largely because of the increased salinity and increased incidences of anoxia.
Several marine species (orange mouth corvina, gulf croaker, and sargo) were introduced to the Salton Sea and became, along with tilapia, a major recreational fishery (great article). All four species were self-sustaining with the corvina at the top of the food chain. The corvina reached over 20 pounds. In the 1960's, the Salton Sea supported California's most productive fishery. It became a destination fishery and supported a major tourism industry around the Salton Sea. But by the early 90s, the hypoxia created by the high nutrient levels and the increased salinity disrupted the life cycle of all three marine species because their young-of-the-year were especially susceptible to extreme environmental conditions. A wet year would produce a decent recruitment, but these became rarer and rarer. [The tilapia can survive along the wave-washed shorelines.]. But even the tilapia numbers have largely crashed.
A long answer to a simple question. But it is an interesting story.
Steve

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Thanks so much, Steve ! Can sure see how fast life evolves or dies off when niches open and close, and how quickly it happens.

This year we have far less water in the fields locally than last (at this juncture -and past 2 months, really), and all the great birding well into Spring has literally dried up. Good things the birds can fly.
If they were fish, they'd be stuck.

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Osprey and spawning peamouth

 

[joefromchicago]

Osprey and spawning peamouth

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View attachment 111401

So that's what those fish were. As a kid, a local creek would be packed with those red-striped fish and we never could figure out what they were.

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

So that's what those fish were. As a kid, a local creek would be packed with those red-striped fish and we never could figure out what they were.

I am not sure. Might have to get an expert like @Smalma or @Cabezon to help on ID's. Probably depend on location? I am only familiar with Peamouth in our large coastal, low gradient streams. I have seen schools of red-striped mountain suckers in Rocky Ford and I assume they are more east of the Cascades species. Their red was more true, the peamouths I have seen or caught were more orange. If quite small I imagine we might start talking a shiner species?

Hope others jump on.

 

[Smalma]

Teh osprey's meal is indeed a peamouth, one of our native minnow species. Seeing large numbers of those fish in a small creek in the spring (mid-May/June) would be typical of peamouth spawning run. During the period they have that characteristic red strip. They are found in our larger rivers and many lakes (pre-rehab) connected to those rivers. When those small creeks flow into a much larger lake (think of those creeks and Cedar flowing into Lake Washinton) those spawning runs can be in surprising numbers. Those fish are typically 9 to 12 inches long.

While the Longnose sucker and its western Washington version as well as the redside shiner (all native Washington fishes) also have a reddish stripe but typically are not found in the kinds of numbers and sizes seen with the peamouth during those small creek spawning runs.

Back in the day it was rare that during that spawning period that one or more call about those large numbers of red-striped mystery fish in a back creek did land on my desk. At here in north Puget Sound area those fish were always peamouth.

Curt

 

[G_Smolt]

Hairy woodpecker.

Makes my inner 12-year-old laugh every time one lands on the deck.

 

[SculpinSwinger]

Cell phone…

 

[Scott Salzer]

What ducks in the second picture?

 

[RRSmith]

What ducks in the second picture?

The back of the hen appears to me to be a mallard with newly hatched ducklings (duck nerds would say class 1A ducklings).

 

[SculpinSwinger]

What ducks in the second picture?

@RRSmith is correct, she and the ducklings are mallards

 

[Kilchis]

Cinnamon Teal, drake

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

This guy was putting on a crazy head-swaying display. I had never seen a sapsucker do this. Love to see a colorful bird here where we know drab is the new neon in our neck of the woods

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Da Vinci's Vitruvian bird..or western sandpiper readying for take off

Below: one beauty of mirrorless cameras are the ultra fast shutter speeds. This is 1/10,000 sec. These cameras routinely shoot up to 1/32,000 sec now. Some even higher. Spyhopping coho smolt.



The loons, cormorants and gulls were not feeding on the large boiling ball of smolt plants at a marina. They were all feeding in their normal spots a hundred or more yards away.

Common loon in brilliant plumage popped up too close for a proper shot so it became an un-cropped macro shot from less than 20 feet away with a 600mm lens (1200mm on my Olympus m4/3).

 

[Jim F.]

Exceptional shot of the Sandpiper, John!