Lake Barlee is an intermittent salt lake. With a surface area of 1980 sqkm, it is the second largest lake in Western Australia.

Description

Lake Barlee is situated on the Yilgarn block 65 km southeast of Youanmi and 160 km north of Bullfinch, on the border between the shires of Sandstone and Menzies. It is more than 100 km from west to east, and about 80 km from north to south. Lake Barlee and other lakes in the area are cenozoic palaeovalleys, fed predominantly by groundwater flowing through ancient palaeochannels. The channels are filled with calcretes and alluvial clay-quartz units. Like most of the clay playas in the area, it is usually dry but can fill when tropical cyclones 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 waterbirds. 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 10 m, support samphire 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.

History

The traditional owners of the area are the Mantjintjarra Ngalia peoples, whose range extended from around Lake Wells in the east, to Lake Darlot and Lake Miranda in the west, to Cosmo Newberry through to Leonora and Lake Barlee up to Wiluna in the north. Lake Barlee was named by John Forrest, who encountered it on 18 May 1869. Forrest's party, which was searching for the lost explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, 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, the Colonial Secretary of Western Australia.

Birds

Lake Barlee, along with some small satellite lakes, was identified by BirdLife International as a 1937 km2 Important Bird Area (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, Australian shelduck, pink-eared duck, white-headed stilt, and red-capped plover.

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