This birdwatching location is on the northeast outskirts of the town of Reardan, which is at the intersection of Highway 2 and Highway 231 west of Spokane, WA. The site encompasses 277 acres of wetlands, which includes an 80 acre alkaline lake.
The area is home to at least 42 species of birds. Here one may see blue-winged, cinnamon, and green-winged teal, northern pintails, redheads, ruddy ducks, pied-billed and eared grebes, black-necked stilts, American avocets and Wilson's phalaropes, greater and lesser yellowlegs, western and least sandpipers, and long-billed dowitchers. Others, less common, include Baird's, pectoral and semipalmated sandpipers and black terns.
Rare migrants among the area's 12 species of concern are sandhill cranes, snowy plovers, western grebes, common loons, short-billed dowitchers and trumpeter swans. Rare foraging species are the bald eagle, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, merlin, peregrine falcon and Vaux's swift. And in the fall, when we visited, Canada Geese were passing through.
I'll let the Audubon people describe the area to you:
Reardan Audubon Lake Wildlife Area
277 acres of wetlands, seasonal ponds, grasslands, and channeled scablands, including an 80-acre lake, that support over 200 bird and other wildlife species, 12 of special concern in Washington. So many birdwatchers have been coming to this site since the 1950's that it has became known as "Audubon Lake".
With support from other groups and individuals, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (VVDFW) applied for and received critical wildlife habitat funding from the state's Recreation and Conservation Office to acquire this property in 2006. Additional grants and donations have supported restoration of grasslands and facility development, including viewing blinds with telescopes. Work is ongoing to enhance wildlife viewing opportunities with vegetation screening along trails to blinds.
Please help us take care of this special place. You'll see more wildlife if you:
Stay on the trails and away from lake shoreline
Use the viewing blinds (where scopes are installed)
Use binoculars, scopes, and telephoto camera lenses rather than trying to get closer
Keep noise to a minimum
Keep dogs and other pets on leash, or leave them in your vehicle or at home
Remember you're the guest in wildlife's home
Play by the rules: Have the required vehicle permit to park in this lot (available through Fish & Wildlife)
Pack it in, pack it out
No hunting or firearms No fires or fireworks No overnight parking or camping
Birds love this shallow basin for its unique provisions, especially spring and fall migrating waterfowl and shorebirds. The lake is fed by nutrient-rich ground water, reduced by evaporation with high summertime temperatures and low rainfall. This keeps dissolved minerals concentrated and makes the water very alkaline (high pH). Few freshwater vertebrates can tolerate these conditions, so there are no fish and few amphibians.
The alkaline water and mudflats are rich in phytoplankton like algae, which are fed on by zooplankton (tiny aquatic herbivores), which are fed on by larger insects. Without fish, these foods are especially abundant for aquatic birds.
It all started over 13,000 years ago
when this shallow water-filled depression, along with much of Eastern Washington's topography, was created by catastrophic flooding from the repeated collapse of an ice dam at the mouth of Glacial Lake Missoula during the Ice Age. The flood waters coursed hundreds of feet deep above the present land surface, shaping the land by removing billions of tons of soil and rock.
The lake is in the headwaters of three local tributaries of the Spokane and Columbia river drainages: Crab Creek to the southwest, Spring Creek to the north, and Deep Creek to the northeast. The bed of the lake is granite, exposed to view between the north parking area and viewing blind, and along the small escarpment westward to Highway 231. Giant current ripples can be seen between the base of this escarpment and the lake. Look for geologic formations called "Mima mounds" or "biscuit and swale" on the scabland basalt between the north viewing blind and railroad tracks.
Grassland restoration work is ongoing to return about 50 acres to original Palouse Prairie, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The vegetation had been mostly non-native pasture grasses and aggressive noxious weeds — poor for native wildlife food, cover, and nesting. Mowing, harrowing, and spraying by WDFW land management staff continues in both north and south fields to keep weeds from sprouting in newly planted native grasses and forbs.
Over time bluebunch, wheatgrass, Idaho fescue, needlegrass, prairie junegrass, Great Basin wildrye, big sagebrush, fleabane daisy, longleaf phlox, lupine, and other species will flourish in the loamy soils of the uplands as they did historically.
From NAME
Large blind east of parking lot