Klamath Basin Waterfowl
— — the morning the marsh takes flight.
Not only on a wall.
“A high desert basin near the Oregon line where the Pacific Flyway narrows. In late fall and early spring the marshes of Lower Klamath and Tule Lake hold the largest concentration of waterfowl in the West. Pintails, snow geese, tundra swans, a quarter-million birds and more at the peak weeks. Theodore Roosevelt set the first refuge here aside in 1908; it was the first waterfowl refuge in the country. Bear Valley, just over the line, holds the largest wintering bald eagle roost in the lower forty-eight. The auto-tour roads run flat along the dikes. Most people leave the windows down.
Klamath Basin Waterfowl, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Klamath Basin sits in northeastern California along the Oregon border, a high-desert basin around 4,000 feet of elevation, drained by the Klamath River system. The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex includes six refuges totaling about 200,000 acres of shallow lakes, freshwater marshes, sagebrush uplands, and croplands managed jointly with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The California units (Lower Klamath, Tule Lake, and Clear Lake) sit in Siskiyou and Modoc counties; Bear Valley, Upper Klamath, and Klamath Marsh lie just over the Oregon line. The visitor center is in Tulelake, California, and auto-tour routes circle the marshes at both Tule Lake and Lower Klamath.
Late October through early December brings peak fall migration: hundreds of thousands of pintails, mallards, snow geese, white-fronted geese, and tundra swans pour into the basin, the largest staging concentration on the Pacific Flyway. December through February centers the largest wintering bald eagle population in the lower 48 states; up to 500 eagles roost at Bear Valley National Wildlife Refuge each night and disperse across the marshes by day. Spring migration runs February through April, when many of the same species push north toward Arctic breeding grounds. Summer is quieter; the marshes draw down and managed flooding cycles by refuge unit, depending on water deliveries from the Klamath Project.
The refuge complex headquarters and visitor center sit at 4009 Hill Road in Tulelake, California, open most days except federal holidays. Two auto-tour routes are the standard way through: a 10-mile loop at Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge and a longer drive at Lower Klamath, both flat gravel dikes traversable by car in roughly an hour each. There is no entrance fee. Spotting scopes help; the birds work the open water at distance. Clear, cold mornings just after sunrise are when the basin is calmest and the flocks lift first. Dress for high desert weather: temperatures swing from below freezing at dawn to mild by noon.