Kirsten Bartlow: Trumpeter and Tundra Swans
By: KARK 4 News
Updated: January 27, 2013
On this week's Wild Women, Kirsten Bartlow discusses trumpeter and tundra swans. They are native to Arkansas.
The trumpeter swan is the largest waterfowl species native to North America and is one of our rarest native birds.
It weighs around 30 pounds with up to an 8-foot wingspan! For perspective, the giant subspecies of Canada goose only weighs about 12 pounds.
Trumpeters are all white with back feet and beaks and with a red grin line on their beak. Cygnets or young swans are grayish colored.
The birds generally mate for life and may live 20-30 years. They are very family oriented and learn how and where to migrate from their parents. This knowledge was lost when swan numbers where knocked back to near extinction in the lower 48 states.
100 years ago, trumpeter swans were a common migrant in Arkansas.
Easy target for hunry settlers! Today, they're a rare winter visitor. Three swans showed up at Magness Lake in the early 1990s.
Over the years, these swans have brought friends and family and upward of 150 swans have been spotted on the lake.
Trumpeter swans nest in Alaska and the northern Midwest. They eat aquatic vegetation, leaves, seeds, roots and pond weeds. Their heads and necks may become stained with yellow or brown tones from diving underwater to feed.
Easy target for hunry settlers! Today, they're a rare winter visitor. Three swans showed up at Magness Lake in the early 1990s.
Over the years, these swans have brought friends and family and upward of 150 swans have been spotted on the lake.
Trumpeter swans nest in Alaska and the northern Midwest. They eat aquatic vegetation, leaves, seeds, roots and pond weeds. Their heads and necks may become stained with yellow or brown tones from diving underwater to feed.
We are working with other agencies and have released swans at Holla
Bend National Wildlife Refuge along the Arkansas River and in the Boxley
Valley area
of the Buffalo River. The hope is these swans will fly north to their
breeding grounds and then return to Arkansas for the winter and bring their
families. These are great location to go view the swans. We ask the
public to turn information to us on their sightings.
Go to www.agfc.com
for more info on trumpeter swans and for directions to Magness Lake, which is near Heber Springs.
