Tundra Swans. Cygnus columbianus. It’s numerous across the Northern Hemisphere. The Eurasian version of this species is called Bewick’s Swan, after the great British natural history illustrator of the early 19th Century. Here Tundra Swans breed in the furtherst northern reaches of North America from the Bering Strait east to the shores of Hudson’s Bay. They winter in dense flocks on the Mid-Atlantic Coast and Pacific slope as well as northern Nevada. No tropical sun for these guys. The normally frigid winters of the Klamath Basin (4000′ elevation) is fine with them.
Not as large as the scarcer Trumpeter Swan, the Tundra still can weigh over 12 pounds. The youngster (cygnet) from last breeding season spends the winter looking gray and sooty, usually in comoany with mom and dad. Sibley’s field guide rightfully notes that the distant sound of Tundra Swans is like baying hounds. The sound was inescapable across the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge yesterday where these great birds were gathered in the thousands.
When it takes off the swan’s long wings beat a loud rhythm across the water’s surface. On land the swan taking to air races down the runway before lift-off. The wingspan is over 5 feet. The swans’ are largely herbivorous and can be seen grazing wet and dry fields in winter.
In the upright picture you are looking down into flooded farmland along OR 140 near Running Y ranch and those many white spots are some of the thousands of swans present at that location.
Click here to see more pics and the checklists from a winter day in the Klamath Basin.
Swans are gorgeous. There’s a few generations of Trumpeters along the Madison River in Yellowstone that we look for every time we’re there.
And a decade ago, the Wisconsin DNR “planted” a pair of Trumpeters in the marsh just north of the little lake our cabin is on. They were DNR “stolen” eggs from Alaska, hatched and raised in Wisconsin. They mated and had 3 cygnets. They used to come up on the shore next to our cabin. Son David and I found the carcass of one young floating in the creek without a head or a neck. Probably the victim of a bald eagle. Then the female vanished. I called the DNR and was informed that it had died of lead poisoning (lead shot from past duck hunters or lead sinkers from anglers). The male and two surviving young left in late fall. The male and one young returned the next spring, but disappeared by mid-summer. It was great while it lasted.
By: Ken from Northfield on February 9, 2012
at 7:25 pm