Pic of the Day

     Thunderstorm over Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island, Utah:  After a morning of shooting birds at Bear River NWR, clouds began to fill the skies.  With the loss of light I thought I would drive to the Farmington Bird Sanctuary about thirty miles to the south and check it out.  At the sanctuary I was able to shoot close-up photos of Black-necked Stilts (see previous post) in the soft light that the cloud cover provided.

     Around 3:00 PM the cloud cover at Farmington began to break-up and I though I would check-out Antelope Island.  Antelope Island is a state park and refuge known for its birdlife, especially along the 7 mile causeway to the island.  As I drove along the causeway I found it to be particularly void of life.  When I arrived at the island itself little had changed.  Where the causeway connected to the island there was an abundance of Yellow-headed Blackbirds, but that was about it.

     As I drove around the island I could see massive thunderstorms that had formed over the Great Salt Lake.  Using my I-pad, I opened the “Weather Bug” apt and saw that the storms stretched 130 degrees from the southwest to the northeast.  Bear River Refuge, which lay north of Antelope Island was under a torrential downpour.  This shot is of the southern tip of the storm as seen from White Rock Bay.  This photo is a color digital image, which I converted to black-and-white in Photoshop.

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-85 zoom set to 30mm,  1/1000sec. @ f10