No Basic Lake
An Ornithologist’s Dream
Perched on the Eastern edge of central California, Mono Lake is one of the most unique ecosystems we’ve encountered on our IFP journey. This salt-saturated lake serves as a temporary home for two million migratory birds, who top off a brine shrimp based food web. The slippery alkaline water shines in the sunlight, a delicate flash of light amid the dark mountains that flank the lake on all sides. Mirror images of rough columns paint the lake gray-white in ripple-free areas. These beams are rare Tufa rock formations, a product of the mixing of calcium rich tributary springs and carbonate ions beneath the surface of the water. These formations not only give Mono Lake its unusual character, but also create the perfect nesting sights for ospreys as well as several other species of seasonally migrating birds.
A more permanent resident, Dave Marquart, welcomed our group to the park with a goofy smile and some subtle comedy. It quickly became clear that visitors — both avian and human — were what gave Dave his love for his job. Though often told he resembles Bruce Willis, this rowdy ranger was more into fun than guns. Our walking tour was a fifty-fifty split between cheesy jokes and interactive education.
“I call it the car alarm bird,” Dave tells us, diverting from his description of the lake’s history when the screech of a bird catches his ears, “because it sounds just like one of those old crazy car alarms.” A slew of inhuman noises are suddenly spilling out of his mouth as he rushes between different rhythms in mockery of a car alarm, and by extension the interrupting bird. Dave’s a proud bird lover, unafraid to put all else on hold for the sake of a good bird sighting. He tells us the birds are his favorite part of the ecosystem at Mono Lake. The area is a birder’s paradise. Thousands of species pass through seasonally, many of which are hard to see elsewhere in the United States. Though he has a soft spot for all the birds, Dave later tells us his favorite is the Wilson Phalarope, a bird that flies 36 miles an hour nonstop for three days straight as it migrates from Mono Lake down to the Ecuadorian Coast. This bird stocks up for flight at Mono Lake, doubling its weight in the mere month it nests there.
After finishing his brief discussion of Los Angeles’ quick depletion of Mono Lake during the 1960s and 70s, Dave walks us down to the shore line, pointing out where it would have been just fifty years ago. Upon instruction, we stick our fingers into the water and rub them together. “After swimming in the lake you’re left with that natural soap of the water on your body, so showering is a truly amazing experience. You often hear people hooting and hollering,” Dave tells us with a big smile and halfway hidden chuckle.
At our next stop he chooses a student to grab a beaker and help him demonstrate the formation of tufa. He takes a swig from his water bottle to prove it really is pure water before pouring it into the beaker to combine it with calcium. When dumped in the lake the solution precipitates little white chunks of calcite. “If we do this experiment enough times in the same place we’d start to see tufa forming right here. Just look over there,” he jesters toward large 200 year old tufas, “I did this experiment everyday for a year right there and boy did it have big results,” he jokes.
During the next demonstration, a few a students and one of the Teaching Assistants eat fly pupae, taking a taste of a part of an ancient Paiute culture. Then the less brave members of the group get a chance to take part in a non-consumptive activity. Each member of our group is given a small cup with which we catch the tiny brine shrimp that are endemic to the lake. We watch them swim around in our cups as Dave explains to us their importance to the food chain. With no fish in the lake, birds rely on these shrimp as their only source of food.
On our way back to our vans Dave points out the 21 small volcanoes that make up the Mono Chain, the youngest mountain range in North America. The gray mountains look like small mounds from where we stand, ridges of an invisible back bone. Turning back toward the group, Dave asks a student to pick up a large rock. She hesitates before realizing it is pumice, a very light volcanic rock. Lifting it with ease she passes it around as Dave lists off the other mountains and rock formations we can see and explains the geological composition of the lake area. One in particular stands out, a tall rounded peak reaching its way above the others to steal a view of Mono Lake. Dave tells us this peak is a part of Yosemite National Park, our next stop.
Leaving Mono Lake I found myself wondering when, if ever, I would see an ecosystem like this again. As my mind wandered I was quickly reminded of how different a trip to a place like this would be without Ranger Dave there to joke his way through an interactive tour. How different it would be without my professors and students by my side, yellow notebooks in hand and dirty clothes on our backs.
The lake, as unique as it was, was not what made our stop there truly one of kind. Just like the diverse migratory birds come together to offer a brilliant compilation of different characteristics, IFP’s diverse population of personalities make any experience irreplaceable. And like the endemic brine shrimp that give the birds a reason to land, Ranger Dave gave IFP a reason to remember. Still, though a flock of students would be missing, I couldn’t help but feel that from here out any salt-saturated tufa-friendly lake would ground me in memory. A visit to a lake like Mono would always be filled with memory, laughs echoing off the tufa, detailed notes skating across the lake’s surface. The feeling of nostalgia, the sense of family; that’s what I would search for if I ever got the chance to visit this type of ecosystem again.
