Antelope Island

Here is a series I shot out at Antelope Island State Park in The Great Salt Lake.
It was a pleasant day with not much crowds and easy to find my own space to photograph. I staqrted out with the short hike out to the point at Egg Island Overlook. Here I was able to practice my skills at shooting birds in flight on a large flock of California Gulls. It was quite fun as I was allowed to slowly move into within a hundred feet. The downfall were the persistently annoying little Brine Flies, that would burrow down through my thinning head of hair to my scalp and start feeding.

After shooting the gulls for a bit, I made my way around Bridger Bay to Buffalo Point. I was hoping to hike to the high ground on the point, but found the pesky little critters to be too thick to be enjoyable. On my way around the Bay, I came across a few Bison grazing in the grasses. Antelope Island has a one of the largest herds of Bison in the United States with a size of approximately 750 head.

After being run off from the parking lot on the upper slopes of Buffalo Point, I followed the road on the east side of the island to its end. It provided wonderful views of the Wasatch Mountains across the lake still capped with the winters snow. But I found the swarms of Brine Flies to be so thick in areas, it looked as if there was a blowing sand storm.

Wanting to kill enough time so that I could shoot the sunset from the island, I found a trail starting in White Rock Bay that followed the shoreline around Buffalo Point. Here the troublesome little critters seemed to fewer. It was a nice four mile round trip hike along the south side of the point with more great views. And even a couple of Antelope were seen. One of them had odd looking irregularly shaped horns, making it look like a misfit.

After the hike, it was time to head back to Bridger Bay to catch the sunset. And the gulls were very active as the sun dipped to the horizon, providing an interesting foreground to the beautiful color.