On Sunday we drove from Spokane to see the Tundra Swan Festival near Usk. We were a day late for the people festivities, but we saw thousands of waterbirds on Calispell Lake and many of the shallow bodies of water in the area with open water. In addition to hundreds (thousands?) of Tundra Swans, there were thousands of Northern Pintails, American Wigeon, Lesser Scaup, Northern Shoveler, Canada Geese, American Coots, and many other species. The lake is mostly surrounded by private property, but there are several places where we could see well from the road shoulder. The roads around the lake are dirt, but easily passable in a passenger sedan. the weather was sunny and chilly (upper 30's) in the morning, deteriorating to snow flurries, strong winds, and overcast-to-foggy by mid-day. Sacheen and Davis Lakes are both still frozen over, but we got great looks from an un-named shallow lake on the west side of the highway a few miles south of Sacheen Lake.

Gary Kelsberg
Seattle
kelsberg at u dot washington dot edu