Summers are spent along the north tundra coastal areas of the continent in Canada and Alaska. Winter range is divided into three separate ranges, western, central and eastern.

The western winter range is all of the western states of California, Oregon, Washington and extreme south British Columbia with migration through the eastern area of those states together with Nevada and Yukon to the coastal areas of Alaska and western Canada.

The central winter range is inland parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma with migrating directly northward to Hudson Bay and northern coastal Canada. This range may be dissipating as few bird fly to Texas.

The eastern winter range is along the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia up through the upper Chesapeake Bay, with migrating directly northward to Hudson Bay and the Northwest Passage areas.

Flocks in the winter and during migration to shallow fresh water especially to coastal estuaries and nearby grain fields. Usually hold it′s neck straight when swimming. Flies in straight lines as well as in Vs.

Smaller than the trumpeter swam but is often hard to distinguish except by voice, Tundra voice is high, less harsh than trumpeter. Also, the tundra swan has a yellow lore spot on upper bill. Immature, like the trumpeter swan are gray-brown with bills and legs marked with pink, but white by the first spring.

Leaving Reno, I soon arrive in Bordertown, Nevada and amazed at seeing the lake full of water. Continuing north on US 395 which turns east at Johnsonville, I drive through a few small towns and then begin to climb back up over another mountain range and soon the dry roads turn wet, then white with more snow coming down. I arrive at Sage Hen summit (5655 feet) with the snow coming down hard but as soon as I cross over the pass, the snow stops, the sun comes out and as I continue descending, the road returns to dry conditions. Crossing a long flat section just south of Alturas, I drive along a wetland area where I stop, get out my camera and photograph some of the local birds.

Thinking that these are snow geese, all of the photos stay in the assigned folder until two months later when I am working on the photo album to upload some of my photos to the website. I take one photo of this bird, uploaded it so as to show in my daily journal and when I get out my bird ID book, I was surprised to find out that I have never photographed this particular species before. I then got busy and created this new page to highlight the Tundra Swan. In all three photos, there are immature swans which are the birds with the darker gray neck, where as the mature swans have a white nect with a yellow throat closest to the head.