Recovery efforts end swan dive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/05/2024 (487 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This spring could easily be dubbed the year of the swan, with multiple people mentioning they’ve seen more swans than normal throughout the local area. You might have seen them too, as these large all-white birds with long necks are hard to miss.

While they are pretty distinct, readers are reminded that there are two other large white birds that you might mistake for swans. However, these two swan imposters, snow geese and white pelicans, both have black tipped wings.

To add confusion to the mix, we have two species of swan in the area, tundras and trumpeters. Tundra swans, aptly named as they nest far to the north, spend their winters on the east and west coasts of the U.S. Their migration brings them through our area in both the spring and fall in dribs and drabs and are often seen on larger lakes.

The tundra swan population is relatively robust, having escaped much of the hunting pressure that trumpeter swans faced. They are more gregarious, too, forming relatively large flocks during migration and on their wintering grounds.

In fact, flock size is one of the easiest ways of telling the difference between the two species when they fly over, given that they look very similar. While tundra swans can form flocks of over a hundred birds, trumpeter swans generally migrate in family groups of 10 or less.

Standing slightly less than 1.5 meters tall, with a wingspan of around 1.5 meters and a weight of eight kilograms, tundra swans are an impressive bird. On the other hand, trumpeter swans are huge.

Found only in North America, trumpeters are billed as the world’s largest waterfowl species. They stand over 1.5 meters tall, but it is their wingspan of over two metres, and the fact that they can weigh up to 13 kilograms that makes them so noteworthy.

They are also quite noisy. While tundra swans are sometimes referred to as whistling swans due to their higher pitched calls, trumpeter swans have a lower pitched and mightier trumpet.

Of interest, the trumpeter swan’s beautiful white feathers almost led the species to its swan song, literally. Beginning in the 1700s, swans attracted the fashion industry’s attention, and their populations were decimated to supply feathers for ladies’ hats, etc.

And given their large size, many also found their way to the dining room table as an impressive entrée. Nesting throughout the prairies and southern boreal forest, trumpeter swans were relatively easy to find and were particularly hard hit by market hunters.

The end result was that these magnificent birds were nearly hunted to extinction by 1900. A census in 1935 estimated that the population had hit a low of 69 birds. However, all was not lost. A few dedicated people fought to protect them, providing them sanctuary in their over-wintering grounds in the U.S.

Trumpeter swans do quite well in semi-captivity, and many swan populations were started from transplants from the successful breeding program centered in Minnesota. As a result, the population now tops out at over 63,000, making their recovery one of the most successful conservation programs ever.

Locally, the trumpeter swan populations continue to grow since they first reappeared in the area 20 years ago. In fact, I was lucky enough to help confirm the first nesting of trumpeter swans in Manitoba in over 100 years.

In the spring of 2003, a pair of large white birds were spotted from a helicopter by a crew setting up for a prescribed burn in Riding Mountain National Park. The lake where they were observed was located south of Gunn Lake, about four kilometres from the nearest trail.

Adam Walleyn and I decided that the sighting was worth following up on, so we made our way to the area. We spotted the birds in classic trumpeter swan habitat — a large beaver pond, with the nest located on an old muskrat house.

This nesting record was not entirely unexpected, as there had been reports of trumpeter swans in the Duck Mountains for several summers prior to our discovery, suggesting that they may have been nesting there.

Nor was it not unexpected that western Manitoba would be the first place to have a confirmed nesting. Trumpeter swan populations first rebounded in Alberta and had expanded into Saskatchewan by the 1990s.

Currently, there are at least a dozen swan pairs nesting in the Park. And it appears that there is no reason to expect that they won’t keep expanding. Earlier this spring, I had six swans, in the form of three pairs, fly low over me as they landed on a small patch of open water.

The sun was setting, and the swans, flying so close that I felt that I could reach out and touch them, trumpeted out their grand call, announcing their safe arrival for another summer. It was pure magic.

» Ken Kingdon lives in the heart of the Riding Mountain Biosphere Reserve, in Onanole. Send him a text at 204-848-5020 if you have wildlife stories to share.