Lake Barlee is an intermittent

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per liter). I ...

. With a surface area of , it is the second largest lake in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

Description

Lake Barlee is situated on the Yilgarn block southeast of Youanmi and north of

Bullfinch Bullfinch is a name given to two groups of passerine birds. True bullfinches The true bullfinches are thick-billed finches in the passerine family Fringillidae. They comprise the genus '' Pyrrhula''. These birds are distributed across Asia and Eu ...

, on the border between the shires of

Sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

and

Menzies Menzies is a Scottish surname, with Gaelic forms being Méinnearach and Méinn, and other variant forms being Menigees, Mennes, Mengzes, Menzeys, Mengies, and Minges. Derivation and history The name and its Gaelic form are probably derived f ...

. It is more than from west to east, and about from north to south. Lake Barlee and other lakes in the area are

cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

palaeovalleys, fed predominantly by groundwater flowing through ancient palaeochannels. The channels are filled with

calcrete Caliche () is a soil accumulation of soluble calcium carbonate at depth, where it precipitates and binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It occurs worldwide, in aridisol and mollisol soil orders—generally in arid or s ...

s and alluvial clay-quartz units. Like most of the clay playas in the area, it is usually dry but can fill when

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

s become rain-bearing depressions after they cross the coast. It fills about once every ten years on average, after which the water usually persists for another six to nine months. When it is inundated, it becomes an important breeding site for

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

s. Lake Barlee receives water from direct rainfall and inflow from a multitude of creeks. The bed of the lake is bare, with hundreds of greenstone rock islands of varying sizes. These islands, typically with heights less than , support

samphire Samphire is a name given to a number of succulent salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) that tend to be associated with water bodies. * Rock samphire ('' Crithmum maritimum'') is a coastal species with white flowers that grows in Ireland, the Uni ...

vegetation. When the lake is nearly full or overflowing, at least five of the islands may support large numbers of breeding birds, particularly the

banded stilt The banded stilt (''Cladorhynchus leucocephalus'') is a Bird migration#Short-distance and altitudinal migration, nomadic wader of the stilt and avocet family, Recurvirostridae, native to Australia. It belongs to the monotypic genus ''Cladorhync ...

History

The

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

of the area are the

Mantjintjarra Ngalia The Mandjindja, Mantjintjarra or Manytjilytjarra are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia belonging to the Western Desert cultural bloc. Country The only information on the Mandjindja's country are estimates given by Norman Tind ...

peoples, whose range extended from around Lake Wells in the east, to

Lake Darlot Lake Darlot is an ephemeral lake in the centre of Western Australia, lying approximately east-north-east of Leinster, and north of Leonora in the Goldfields-Esperance region. Its surface elevation is 434 metres above mean sea-level. Discove ...

and Lake Miranda in the west, to

Cosmo Newberry Cosmo Newbery (also spelt Cosmo Newberry) is a small Aboriginal community in Western Australia, east of Perth between Laverton and Warburton in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. In the , Cosmo Newberry had a total popul ...

through to Leonora and Lake Barlee up to Wiluna in the north. Lake Barlee was named by

John Forrest Sir John Forrest (22 August 1847 – 2 SeptemberSome sources give the date as 3 September 1918 1918) was an Australian explorer and politician. He was the first premier of Western Australia (1890–1901) and a long-serving cabinet minister in ...

, who encountered it on 18 May 1869. Forrest's party, which was searching for the lost explorer

Ludwig Leichhardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (; 23 October 1813 – ), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.Ken Eastwood,'Cold case: Leichhardt's disappearanc ...

, became bogged while trying to cross the salt lake. After extracting their horses, they skirted the lake for nearly a week. On 25 May, Forrest climbed Yeedie Hill and saw the extent of the lake. Forrest named the lake after

Frederick Barlee Sir Frederick Palgrave Barlee (6 February 1827 – 8 August 1884) was Colonial Secretary of Western Australia from 1855 to 1875; Lieutenant-Governor of the British Honduras (now Belize) from 1877 to 1882; and Administrator of Trinidad in 1884. ...

, the

Colonial Secretary of Western Australia The colonial secretary of Western Australia was one of the most important and powerful public offices in Western Australia, in the time when Western Australia was a British colony. The colonial secretary was the representative of the British Col ...

Birds

Lake Barlee, along with some small satellite lakes, was identified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

as a

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA). It supported one of the largest recorded breeding events of the banded stilt, with 179,000 nests counted. Other waterbirds known to breed at the lake include the

black swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large Anatidae, waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent ...

Australian shelduck The Australian shelduck (''Tadorna tadornoides''), also known as the chestnut-breasted shelduck or mountain duck, is a shelduck, a group of large goose-like ducks part of the bird family Anatidae. The genus name ''Tadorna'' comes from Celtic ...

pink-eared duck The pink-eared duck (''Malacorhynchus membranaceus'') is a species of duck found in Australia. Description The pink-eared duck has a large spatulate bill like the Australasian shoveler, but is smaller at 38–40 cm length. Its brown back ...

white-headed stilt The pied stilt (''Himantopus leucocephalus''), also known as the white-headed stilt, is a shorebird in the Family (biology), family Recurvirostridae. It is widely distributed with a large total population size and apparently stable population tr ...

, and

red-capped plover The red-capped plover (''Anarhynchus ruficapillus''), also known as the red-capped dotterel, is a small species of plover. It breeds in Australia. This species is closely related to (and sometimes considered conspecific with) the Kentish plover, ...

Gallery

Lake Barlee Map.png Crossing Lake Barlee.jpg, Prospectors crossing Lake Barlee, ''circa'' 1923 Banded stilts 2 Governors Lake Rotto email.jpg, Banded stilts

References

{{reflist Barlee Important Bird Areas of Western Australia Barlee, Lake

Description

History

Birds

Gallery

See also

References