Nope! When I woke this morning and looked out the window I saw black bills and black feet. We have a large flock of trumpeter swans in front of our house today!
Mute swans aren't really mute, but they sure are quiet compared to their chatty trumpeter-swan cousins.
There were about 60 trumpeter swans in the main flock, and another 10-20 scattered among the mute swans that were mostly outside this photo. This is the first time since we moved in almost ten years ago that I've seen trumpeter swans on Wolverine Lake.
Based on their wingspan (nearly eight feet) and weight (25-35 pounds) trumpeter swans are generally regarded as the largest wild waterfowl species in the world.
They're pretty rare in Michigan. They were hunted out about a century ago. They were reintroduced in the 1980s and their current statewide population is estimated at around 400.
Their population count in the continental U.S. was fewer than 70 in the 1930s. That's fewer than the size of the flock out front today. By the start of the 21st century there were about 15,000 in Alaska and Western Canada, and another 1,500 or so East of the Rockies.
Some of the little black-and-white bufflehead ducks that always migrate through in the Fall and Spring flocked together with them, just beyond the edge of the main flock. What would be really exciting would be if this means that we're now on a trumpeter swan migration flyway. That would mean they'd be back every year.
I had only seen trumpeter swans in the Detroit Zoo before. I always find it especially encouraging when I see a natural species that was once on the brink of exctinction out in the wild. It reminds me of the grey whales I used to see migrating up the coast in California or the bald eagle that we saw out on the ice of our lake last winter. It makes me feel that all the effort put into environmental and conservation efforts isn't in vain, and it makes me hope that there may even be hope for the polar bear. (Mind you, I don't want a polar bear in my front lawn anytime soon, no matter how cold the winter!)
Unlike our usual mute swans -- and our Canadian geese, mallards, seagulls, etc. -- the trumpeters were a bit shy. When I stepped off the porch towards the water, they all swam away towards the middle of the lake.
A little later in the day I tried sneaking between some neighbors' homes and creeping up on them from behind a hedge. But this was as close as I could get before they started to swim away again.
Truly wild waterfowl.
For more on trumpeter swans:
Wikipedia entry: trumpeter swan.
Michigan DNR fact sheet: trumpeter swan.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology: trumpeter swan.
The Trumpeter Swan Society.
Cool. We saw them for the first time this year at the cranberry bog we toured in Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteFascinating post, John. Did not realize that these birds had been so close to extinction. I share your pleasure at these restorations of natural balances!
ReplyDelete