Lake Ballard is an
ephemeral
Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...
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 litre). ...
in the
Shire of Menzies
The Shire of Menzies is a local government area in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia located to the north of Kalgoorlie. It covers an area of , and its seat of government is the town of Menzies.
History
The Shire of Menzie ...
,
Goldfields-Esperance area of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
, with its eastern end about north of
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 ...
.
Sculptures
In 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
Perth International Arts Festival the ''Inside Australia'' exhibition was commissioned. The artist and
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
winner
Antony Gormley
Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His works include the ''Angel of the North'', a public sculpture in Gateshead in the north of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998; ''Another Pla ...
installed 51 metal sculptures over an area of on the bed of the lake. Each sculpture represented a local resident of Menzies, derived from the laser scans of the town's residents.
The statues were to be removed at the conclusion of the festival but remain as a tourist exhibition. It is the largest outdoor art gallery on earth.
Banded stilts
The lake is used as a breeding site for
banded stilt
The banded stilt (''Cladorhynchus leucocephalus'') is a nomadic wader of the stilt and avocet family, Recurvirostridae, native to Australia. It belongs to the monotypic genus ''Cladorhynchus''. It gets its name from the red-brown breast band fo ...
s following major flood events. The stilts nest in large close-packed colonies on low islands in ephemeral inland salt lakes such as
Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the ...
,
Lake Barlee and Lake Ballard. The last recorded nesting on the lake was in 1995 following the aftermath of
Cyclone Bobby. The lake, along with the neighboring Lake Marmion some to the east, has been 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 ...
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), because it has supported a high proportion of the known banded stilt mass breeding events.
See also
*
List of lakes of Western Australia
The following lists of lakes of Western Australia are arranged alphabetically:
* List of lakes of Western Australia, A–C (plus numerals)
* List of lakes of Western Australia, D–K
* List of lakes of Western Australia, L–P
* List of lakes of ...
References
{{reflist
Ballard
Ballard
Ballard
Important Bird Areas of Western Australia
Tourist attractions in Western Australia
Shire of Menzies