Spring is here - finally! Yes I know we had snow last week but it was only on the ground for two days. Yes there is still heavy frost at night and I haven't seen any robins yet or daffodils. The Calendar tells me that spring was officially here weeks ago and Easter is long gone but this is Calgary, Alberta where official changes of season can never be taken too seriously. I know it really is spring because the first crocuses are blooming on the hills and wild swans are back on ponds close to the city.
Judith and I first noticed a few of the magnificent big white birds on the river at Bow Valley Park when we walked the dogs on the weekend. Some of the ponds visible from the Trans-Canada Highway were still covered with ice but others were open. There were swans on some of the open ponds along with a few Canada geese. The geese are big birds but they are dwarfed by the swans. I went back yesterday with the camera to try to get a few pictures but also to just relax, watch, enjoy these transient visitors and savor the first real days of spring. I may like winter well enough but at a certain point enough is enough and it is time for another season of growth and renewal. This is the kind of climate change that I can enjoy without any reservations.
North America has two species of swans that were once common and formed huge flocks during colonial times but dwindled under the pressures of hunting and other stresses until very recently when we started to learn to care. The wild swans of the Americas are just as beutiful as the mute swan, introduced from Europe, that most of us are more familiar with because of its presence on ponds in parks in some cities.
I had assumed that I was watching tundra swans also known as whistling swans but began to wonder when I started thinking about how much bigger they were than the geese. The tundra swans nest literally on the tundra close to arctic shores all the way from western Alaska to northern Quebec where they must arrive shortly before the ice melts in order to claim prime breeding territory. I understand that there two populations of tundra swans - one population winters on the Atlantic coast in the Chesepeake Bay region and included the Great Lakes region as an important stage in the migration route to the far north. I found a description of a radio collaring study done at Long Point in southern Ontario. Of seven captured birds, six nested in the delta of the Mackenzie River and the other on Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic. The tundra swans that visit Calgary are part of the western population that winters on the coasts of California and Oregon. They cross the mountains in the spring before heading north, at first following the ice as it recedes from prairie ponds and sloughs.
When I checked some reference material I was in for a very pleasant surprise. The bigger trumpeter swans which had dwinded to only a few hundred individuals and were in serious danger of extinction are in process of making a comeback from the brink. They are now common spring visitors to southern Alberta along the foothills of the Rocky mountains where shallow ponds are an important source of food during the migration. I am not a birder so cannot really be sure but I am almost convinced that I was watching trumpeters rather than tundra swans though it is quite possible that both species were on the chosen pond. I am assured that they are hard to tell apart visually though the voices are quite different and distinctive. The trumpeter swans are bigger, have a sublely different profile of the head and beak and unlike the tundra swans, dont have a small yellow patch in front of the eye. I couldnt see any yellow. I understand that there are several populations of trumpeter swans but those in southern Alberta as spring migrants, spend the winter in the Yellowstone area near the corner where Montana, Idaho and Wyoming join. Nesting is in the Peace River Country farther north in Alberta.
When thinking particularly about the magnificant white swans but also about other migratory birds, it becomes glaringly obvious that the birds are dependant on more than protected conditions in a little park somewhere. Winter range, distant nesting regions and friendly conditions with appropriate food supplies in wetlands along the migration route are all vital. The return of the swans is a happy story. It is a testiment to changing attitudes and the power of caring and cooperation. The story demonstrates that environmental inititives can succed.
I am glad that it is springtime in the foothills. I am even more glad that there are swans on the water and in the air.
Stan Hall