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Swans
Tisdale - Thursday, April 5, 2012

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A neighbour called me Tuesday late afternoon and lamented that did not have her camera with her and no binoculars but she had seen a flock of white birds just north of the Four Season’s Greenhouse, west of Tisdale. She explained that she had found in her bird book evidence to suggest what she had seen were Tundra Swans. Her description of the location was totally accurate and I was able to drive out and see them in the two wide images on this page.

Unfortunately, the battery on the Canon Rebel with its telephoto lens was not up to the task so the pictures you see the rest of the pictures on this page were taken on Wednesday about eight to ten miles south of Tisdale.

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From these pictures there is no conclusive way to determine if these are Tundra Swans or Trumpeter Swans. There are about 170,000 Tundra Swans who could pass over this part of Canada where as the total population of Trumpeters is about 17,000.

Even with that few numbers of individuals American hunters still shoot thousands each year legally while almost double those killed legally are killed by poachers. The other problem is bird shot itself is made of lead and young birds will die from ingesting the little lead balls.

With these images the physical size is the main factor in determining which is which and at a distance it is really just a guess. Trumpeters are slightly larger with a male’s wing span almost ten feet with the Tundra (Whistler) being about 82 inches. In both cases these are big birds. A large male Trumpeter from the tip of his bill to the tip of his tale is about six feet long.
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There are seven species of swans on this planet and they make their summer nesting grounds the area around the Arctic Ocean. The spend their winters in places like Algeria, Iran, China, Florida, California and in the past fifty years are depending more and more on agriculture for winter diet as their habitat is either poisoned or disappearing entirely.

There are two populations of what used to be called Whistler swans, now referred to as Tundra swans, the whistler name came from the sound of their flight not their voices. Surprising the two populations in North America seem to be balancing out and perhaps even gaining a bit in numbers.

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The big beautiful Trumpeters tend to over fly Saskatchewan going south or returning in the spring whereas the Tundras are a little more likely to head down the eastern and rocky mountain fly ways. That alone is about the only argument that can be made suggesting what you see here are Trumpeters but some Tundras also fly down the flyway over Saskatchewan.

I was truly impressed with the way these birds gracefully take to the air and with slow wing beats move along at surprising speed. Not at all like the flight of Niska (Canada geese). As a group of birds the white arctic geese are really long distance travellers and have been known to be cruising along as high as 27,000 feet, just below normal cruise altitude for a Boeing.

The Tundra and Trumpeter swans live long lives from ten to twenty-five years. The take just over three months to go from egg to flying bird, take about three years to grow to reproductive age then spend a year going steady before they mate for life. If one of the partners dies the other lives the rest of their life as a widow or widower.

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