Trumpeters on Swan Lake

Skies cleared more overnight, leading to a frosty cool morning with some patchy fog that dissipated further as the day went on.

I had errands to run this afternoon, so while I was out made a quick stop to see if the Rustic Bunting might be easy to see (it wasn’t), then went by Swan Lake to see about the coots. I think they are still around, but did not see them during my brief stop.

A large family of swans was at the lake, with two adults and 5 juvenile birds. It made me wonder if all the juveniles were hatched out together, or if one (or more) was adopted later.

The new year provides a somewhat arbitrary, but still convenient way to let go of the backlog of photos and blog posts I’ve been intending to work on and ‘start over’ fresh (though I still intend to go back and post the photos and at least short blog posts to go with them). For some technical and organizational reasons, I needed to take care of a few blogs from the past couple of months before posting anything from this year. Over the past few days I’ve been working on those (they are written, but remain as drafts for the moment), and today finally finished them. Based on the number of posts showing up on ‘this day in blog history’ so far this year, it looks like I’ve often entered the new year with some energy for blogging, but that fades as day length increases, I spend more time outside, and photos begin to pile up.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

2 thoughts on “Trumpeters on Swan Lake”

  1. I’m curious to see what the recent bird count came up with for trumpeter swans. In recent years I’ve counted up to 39 at Starrigavan, but this year I’ve only seen a group of 8 adults, and a group of 4 adults and 2 juveniles, so 14 this year. Hope yours are in addition, and that they are still arriving!

  2. Hello – Victoria let me know there 23 swans on the recent bird count. There have definitely been fewer at Starrigavan this year, though I don’t know why. It’s not that big of an estuary, so maybe 39 was too many for them to be comfortable. I also wonder if the relatively warm fall allowed them to stay further north. I’ve got plenty of curiosity and questions about them, but not quite so many answers!

Leave a Reply