Tundra Swans

Dundas, ON. February 26. 2024.  Despite some New Year grumbling, this has been a mild winter, so far anyway.  Optimism is in the air now buoyed by gentle weather and birders’ reports of early spring arrivals.

Hearing that a few returning Tundra Swans had been reported, I wanted to be absolutely sure I didn’t miss them by some quirky sea-change in late-winter/semi-spring conditions.  So today under blue skies I followed a familiar lake-side trail half hoping a flight of swans would settle into this water or, failing that, pass within sight overhead.

By way of explanation: Tundra Swans nest in Canada’s far north and overwinter on the east coast of North America.  Sometime in late February, when the nature nudges them, they start their long flight back, following the retreating ice to arrive back in James Bay in June.  The first leg of that journey is an overnight flight, some 800 kilometres, from Chesapeake Bay, or thereabouts, to Lake Erie.  That passage, landmarked by the north shore of Lake Ontario, takes them high over our heads and leads them on to the shallows around Long Point. Seeing those early Tundra Swans is something of a rite of passage for many of us. Apart from the spectacle of a V-formation twinkling white in the sun, they are a sure step on the way out of winter.

This was a beautiful spring-like day alive with the tentative songs of American Robins, Black–capped Chickadees, a pair of Tufted Titmice and White–breasted Nuthatches, but I was listening hard for the sound of overhead swans calling amongst themselves, a rhythmic, breathy “whoo whoo whoo”. It took a while, but as I made my way along a forested path, I could just pick out those calls, faint but coming closer. I spun around searching above, through the trees, until I spotted the flock, about fifty Tundra Swans in a long, wide V-formation staying high and heading for Lake Erie.

If you look closely you just might make them out in this photo.  My Birds of the Day of course and I hope the first of several groups yet to come.