My friends and I went to the 180th street marsh and arrived just after ten a.m.   We saw at first only Canada Geese in the western most pools then we went to the eastern pools and on the north side quite a ways out we saw at least half a dozen Northern Pintails, a dozen or so Greater White Fronted Geese, a couple of wigeons, mallards and a couple of killdeer.  Next we drove back west towards Hwy 52 and saw at least twenty or so Horned Larks, mostly on the road.  We drove to the industrial boulevard on 284th and saw three killdeer near what was once a pond just north of 284th and then we went to Lake Byllesby. First we stopped at the cemetery and I walked down to the lake past the cemetery. I saw three green winged teals which soon flew off.  We saw a pair of bald eagles and then we drove around to the south side where the boat launch was.  Others have posted how low the water was and that is true but i would say more than 50% of the lake is open now. Here we saw 9 trumpeter swans, some bufflehead, common mergansers and a red tailed hawk sitting on an irrigation pipe.  There were no Greater White fronted geese at Byllesby when we were there.  I posted a few photos on my flickr link. They show just how far off most of the waterfowl were at the 180th street marsh.

Ron Taube

Coon Rapids