Photograph of a group of about 30 pelicans roosting on an island outcropping in the Salton Sea, California, ca.1910. This is "one of the dry desolate buttes of the Salton Basin, now [ca.1910] converted into an island by the waters of the overflow [from heavy runoff breaking the levee of the then under-construction Imperial Canal at the Colorado River]. In a few weeks after its being surrounded by water it became the resting and breeding place of tens of thousands of pelicans." The lake is visible in the background.