Type Salt lake Max. length 50 km (31 mi) Area 49 km² Width 20 km | Basin countries Australia Max. width 20 km (12 mi) Length 50 km | |
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Location Goldfields-Esperance, Western Australia Surface area 4,900 ha (12,108 acres) | ||
Lake Ballard is an ephemeral salt lake in the Shire of Menzies, Goldfields-Esperance area of Western Australia about 50 kilometres (31 mi) West of Menzies.
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Map of Lake Ballard, Western Australia 6436, Australia
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 winner Antony Gormley installed 51 sculptures over an area of 10 square kilometres (4 sq mi) on the bed of the lake. The statues were to be removed at the conclusion of the festival but remain as a tourist exhibition.
Banded stilts
The lake is used as a breeding site for banded stilts 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 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 neighbouring Lake Marmion some 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the east, has been identified by BirdLife International as a 984-square-kilometre (380 sq mi) Important Bird Area (IBA), because it has supported a high proportion of the known banded stilt mass breeding events.