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Many of these birds were easy to photograph - others, like the Tundra Swans, were difficult, because they would not allow us to get close in rural settings - staying still, using a blind, or using a vehicle as a blind helped. They are most prevalent in Minnesota during the fall migration, often in October. Knowing where, and when, to find them on a semi-regular basis helps in sighting, hearing, observing and photographing them. Trumpeter Swans and year round residents in Minnesota, and 1000+ winter in Monticello, Minnesota.

 Male swans are called cobs; females, pens; and young, cygnets. The clutch size varies from 2-8 rough-shelled, pale yellow creamy-white eggs, which hatch in about 35 days. The cygnets stay with the adults for about one year; at about 15 months they get their adult plumage. Swans mate for life, however, if one of a pair dies the other will find a new mate. They gather and pile up grass, sedges, and mosses to make nests, often within 100 yards of the Arctic coastline. The nests measure about 6 feet across and 12-18 inches high. During incubation the females care for the eggs by themselves while the males stand guard.

To achieve flight, swans face into the wind, run along the surface of the water for 15 to 20 feet, flap their wings and beat the water with their feet alternately until they gain sufficient headway to become airborne. They fly in v-shaped formations, and achieve speeds up to 100 miles per hour with tail winds. They have been sighted at elevations of 6,000 to 8,000 feet.

Swans begin nesting in mid-April, with nests as large as sex feet across, they often use muskrat or beaver hives as nesting platforms. They lay from 3 to 8 eggs, but have only a 30% hatching success ratio. Incubation lasts 33 days. Newly hatched swans, called cygnets, may gain 20% of their body weight each day; they are fully feathered by 7-8 weeks, but are unable to fly until 15 weeks, they begin daily practice flights in mid-September. Cygnets are gray-colored for their first year.

The young swans remain with their parents throughout the winter. They are usually chased away from the parents during their second winter, but may stay with their siblings up to two years, thus most of the small groups seen flying consist of a mated pair, and their young of the past two years. During their second year young swans choose a mate on the wintering grounds; they remain mated to until one of them dies. Young swans usually nest the first time between 3 and 6 years of age, on nests in remote areas, where they claim a territory of 3-6 acres; with a long expanse of open water, which they use to taxi before they take flight.

Swans are bottom feeders, using their long necks to search for plants and tubers to eat from the bottoms of ponds, lakes and rivers. Lead poisoning from shotgun shell pellets, illegal hunting, power lines, predators and loss of habitat are the main threats to trumpeter swans.

Trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator) reach lengths of 60 inches, with wind spans of up to 95 inches. They weigh from 21 to 35 pounds, and can live up to 25 years. Trumpeter Swans were once common throughout North America, but due to market hunting for down and feathers, plus subsistence hunting and egg collecting, they were presumed to be exterminated by the 1880's. In 1919 two nests were found in Yellowstone Park. Nesting trumpeters can be found in western Montana, along the borders where Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska meet, and in central Minnesota and east central Wisconsin. In Wisconsin they can be found from spring to fall at the Crex Meadow Wildlife Management Area. In Minnesota up to 900+ Trumpeter Swans can be found wintering along the Mississippi River at Monticello.

Minnesota trumpeter swan restoration began in 1996 by the Hennepin County Parks commission. In 1982 the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources began a recovery program. By 1994 the project and released 215 swans, and there was an estimated free-flying flock of 250 birds in Minnesota. These birds winter on the Mississippi River just north of Minneapolis. This wintering area currently hosts about 900 swans from mid-November through late February.

Listen to a Tundra Swan Call.

Most of these photos were taken on our Trumpeter Swan Tours and Photography Trips at the Crex Meadows Wildlife Management Area in Grantsburg, Wisconsin during the summer and fall, and on the Miississipi River in Monticello, Minnesota, where the birds spend the winter months.

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When the female is read to breed she often places herself in front of the male and submerges her head - and the male mounts her.

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Tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) reach lengths of 52 inches, with wingspans of 85 inches. They can be distinguished from trumpeter swans by the yellow patch between the dark bill and their eyes.

Formerly known as whistling swans, tundra swans nest in the Arctic and stay there during the spring and summer. Birds of the western population winter along the west coast into California, southern Idaho and northern Nevada. Birds of the eastern population winter from Chesapeake Bay to North Carolina. They often stop along the Mississippi River in southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin before they continue on to their eastern wintering grounds.

Pairs and flocks of these large beautiful birds can often be seen along the lakes and backwaters of the Mississippi River from Read's Landing, Minnesota and Alma, Wisconsin to northern Iowa from mid-October to February, with peaks of up to 16,000 birds in November. As many as 9,800 tundra swans have been sighted near Brownsville, Minnesota in the fall.

Their spring arrival is unpredictable; they often arrive in small flocks and remain for only a short time. Large concentrations of swans arrive in the fall beginning in late October, and they often stay until late November or until the water freezes.

Listen to a Tundra Swan Call.

The bottom two photos were taken on our Fall Tundra Swan Tours and Photography Trips near the Weaver Bottoms and the town of Brownsville, along the Mississippi River in southern Minnesota.

Tundra Swan

Tundra Swan

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