Last weekend my friend and I tallied a lifer bird—the Tundra Swan. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen that many swans in one place in my life. This was at Goose Pond north of Madison. There were easily 200 hundred Tundra and Trumpeter Swans along with many species of ducks and geese swimming on the pond or preening or sleeping on the banks and in the nearby farm fields.
The Tundra Swan looks very similar to a Trumpeter Swan, but it has a little yellow spot at the base of it’s beak:
The Trumpeter Swan’s beak is all black:
Trumpeter Swans breed in Alaska and Canada and part of the upper Great Lakes, but Tundra Swans breed in the Arctic.
Both bird species make interesting bugling or trumpeting sounds so you can imagine that several hundred birds in one place made quite a racket.
