The best place to look for returning Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbians) on the Chignik is at Broad Pool, about a mile downriver from the village. One evening the swans announce their arrival with far off, lonesome-sounding notes and by morning they’ve settled at the pool. There the slow-moving, weedy water provides food for the swans as well as for migrating dabbling ducks such as Mallards, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintails and American Wigeons. Diving ducks, mostly Common Goldeneyes, Buffleheads, Greater Scaup and both Common and Red-breasted Mergansers are also likely to be present. At this time, the banks are covered in scraggly, winter-brown grasses, sedges, willows and alders and there may still by ice along the river’s edge. By the end of the month the ice is gone and the swans and most of the ducks will have dispersed to nesting areas further up the drainage, but at least one pair of Mallards and another of wigeons usually stay to nest along along the margins of Broad Pool. They are often joined there by a brood or two of Black Scoters.