Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Rare trumpeter Swan visited Green Tree Country Club
March 6, 2011

Midland recently had the 5th modern record of trumpeter swan for the state of Texas. A resident emailed the Sibley Nature Center late on a Saturday that a large white bird, possibly a swan was at a water hazard near the clubhouse at Green Tree Country Club. Staff emailed the Midland Naturalists field birders in the wee hours of the morning, and Dr. Steve Schafersman found the bird and got good photographs, which he shared with Sibley staff. He identified it as a tundra swa (which has been seen 11 times in 70 years in Midland County). One of the images was put on my Facebook page on Monday morning.

Within minutes expert birders identified it as a trumpeter swan. Every fieldmark was correct, except this bird had yellowish feet, not black. Other experts reported that the leucistic form of trumpeter swans has paler feet. (Leucistic means that the organism is lacking some pigment, but not all, as in albinism). The image were then shared among birders, and can now be found on a number of ornithological websites on the World Wide web, for its unusual appearance was significant and interesting to avid birdwatchers.

In 1997 two were seen near Lubbock. These birds had colored bands on their legs indicated they had been trapped when flightless as juveniles at their birthplace in Minnesota. Trumpeters used to winter in Texas before 95 percent of the population was killed by market hunters by the late 1800's. Fifty years ago the birds could only be found in the Rocky Mountains of the United States (including Alaska) and Canada.

The visiting swan left before any more of the local Midland Naturalists or the avid photographers of the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists were able to see the bird. If the bird had remained, birders from all over the southern states would have been flying in to add it to their life list. If any one sees it again, please let us know, so our motels and restaurants can make some ecotourism dollars!

These birds feed while swimming, sometimes up-ending or dabbling to reach submerged food. The diet is almost entirely aquatic plants. In winter, they also eat grasses and grains in fields. Now we know they will nibble golf course grasses, too! The Cornell University Bird Observatory website gives more information:

The Trumpeter Swan was hunted for its feathers throughout the 1600s - 1800s, causing a tremendous decline in its numbers. Its largest flight feathers made what were considered to be the best quality quill pens. Swans can live a long time. Wild Trumpeter Swans have been known to live longer than 24 years, and one captive individual lived to be 32. Trumpeter Swans form pair bonds when they are three or four years old. The pair stays together throughout the year, moving together in migratory populations. Trumpeters are assumed to mate for life, but some individuals do switch mates over their lifetimes. Some males that lost their mates did not mate again.

Learning this bit of information makes the staff at Sibley wonder if it was a juvenile bird, unwise in the ways of the adults, and out wandering the continental United States. As a teenager and young adult I hitchhiked all over the western United States, so I can identify with this individual! The information made me close my eyes and imagine that somehow I was riding the bird as it soars over West Texas. "Hmmm, look at that little pond with lots of ducks, and over there, there is a bigger lake glinting in the sun. " Do birds have memories? Will this bird remember its visit to Midland, or its visit to the Llano Estacado?

The Trumpeter Swan Society will have its next meeting in October in Montana. The organization, formed in the 1960s, has a superb website with many carefully selected links. As the increase of trumpeter swan population is one of the modern conservation success stories, the organization helps to network biologists interested in trumpeter swans throughout North America, to further document the activities of the birds. For example, a number of trumpeter swans raised in Alaska were fitted with radio transmitters or collars, and the Society has a link to the data -- not a one has come in this direction! We reported our Midland bird to the Society, but as of yet, have not gotten a response. Because of the birds unusual leucistic pigmentation, the individual bird will might been documented before, and we can learn more about its life.