We hold our hands out for balance, walking one foot in front of the other across planks laid out on the marsh. Phragmite, a seven-foot tall grass, reaches over us, and we use our arms to break trail.
Someone ahead stops and points out a peregrine falcon overhead.
With little warning the phrigmate clears, and we face an open salt-ringed field ahead with a small shallow marsh in the middle. One hundred birds are swimming, poking and skimming in the water. American avocets, eared grebes, American white pelicans, white-faced ibis, cinnamon teal and snowy plover crowd together suddenly as the peregrine hawk glides overhead. Joel Peterson, our guide on this Saturday, the first day of the second annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, points out a marsh wren. A hundred yards or so ahead lies the open water of the Great Salt Lake.