This is bird note.

What great spectacle would draw a steady stream of birders this time of year to a place

well known for being hot and smelly?

California's below sea level salt and sea, and the irrigated farmlands at its southern

end are a mecca for tens of thousands of wintering birds.

This inland sea formed when the Colorado River breached floodgates in 1905.

Water flowed into the arid imperial valley, forming a lake 45 miles long.

A century later, the lake has diminished in size and greatly increased in salt concentration,

becoming too salty for most aquatic life.

But a single introduced fish persists in abundance, the African Talapia, seabirds including

thousands of brown pelicans, visit the salt and sea to gobble its fish.

The smell comes from occasional massive die-offs of the fish, so abundant that their bones

make up the shoreline.

Every winter, the salty waters support hordes of waterbirds, including shorebirds, herons,

summer ants, and waterfowl.

Great flocks of snow and rosses geese feed in the farmlands.

A cloud of these white birds lifting from a field may make you forget the heat and even

the smell.

Check out the photos at birdnote.org.

I'm Michael Stein.