Tag Archives: swan

Trumpeter Swans Along the Road

The snow geese are famous visitors to Skagit County in the winter, but they are not the only large birds to show up in big numbers.  The trumpeter swans also appear and, while they might not be in the large flocks of the snow geese, there are still loads of them around.  They also don’t seem to mind being close to the humans.  I had seen a bunch of them as I was driving around and pulled off the road at one point as so many were in the adjacent field.

The fun thing about photographing swans is getting them taking off.  Two or more of them flying at low level as they build speed is pretty cool.  You might normally wait for ages for this to happen but, with so many of them around, it seems as if there is almost always a take off occurring.  Consequently, while some might seem distant, you know another will be closer in before too long.  (I do like the head on look but that does require getting to more inaccessible spots usually.)

After shooting at the same spot for a while, I continued south.  I was getting back to an area south of Mt Vernon when I came across even more swans sitting right by a side road.  They were ridiculously close to the road and, when I pulled up and stopped, they did start to drift away a little.  I guess even swans can be slightly circumspect when it comes to humans arriving.  However, they quickly got used to me and I got some shots of them too!

Trumpeter Swans Back In Juanita

The winter is a good time for swans to show up back in Juanita Bay.  They are there to eat and rest so are not always the most fun to shoot but sometimes they will get a bit more active.  There is a bank of silt in the bay where they can stand and rest so having nothing happen for long periods of time is not impossible.  I was there one Sunday morning and they were eating quite close to the shore.  However, it was winter and, while the sun was out, they were in the shade.

Every once in a while, some of them would get energetic and I could get some shots of them taking off and flying towards each other.  I’m not sure how competitive this all was since things never got terribly aggressive but they did seem to be sparring half-heartedly.  A whole family came in to the bay at one point but, rather than flying in when the light was very nice, they just swam in.  A touch disappointing but it is nature photography.  What can you do?

Swan Family (And What Is With The Foot?)

There were lots of swans in the water along Caen Hill Locks.  Some families were swimming around together with the cygnets well grown.  One of the families had a member that had one foot up and out of the water.  I have no idea whether this is a normal behavior for swans or the sign of an injury but the swan did not seem to be having any problems.

At some point, a couple of the swans got into a little bit of hassle.  I don’t know whether this was a territorial thing or a case of swan flirting but one of them was really chasing another and seemed to be intent on getting them out of the way.  A little separation was enough to stop all of this so I don’t know what it was all about.

Ryde The White Swans

You’ll need to be of a certain age or musical interest to get this title I suspect.  The seafront of Ryde is home to a lot of mute swans.  I knew a few lived on the boating lake but the seafront had loads of them.  It seemed you couldn’t move anywhere without seeing some more.  Swans do seem to have been a bit of a theme for our vacation as I think about it further.

They were swimming around in groups in the sea and some were sheltering in the marina area.  Occasionally some would fly from one spot to the other when swimming seemed like it would take too long!  From where I was, it did look as if they might get in each other’s way but I guess that is just the effect of distance on my perspective.

As we walked back along the seafront, a few of them took off from the sea and headed towards the boating lake.  They were flying straight towards us at one point (although I failed to get a good focus on them so those shots were wasted) but then turned inland to head to the lake.  The sound the swans make as they beat their wings is quite noticeable.  If we didn’t have things to do, I could have spent ages watching them.

Trumpeter Swans on Fir Island

The snow geese are a famous visitor to the Skagit area of Washington but they aren’t the only big birds to show up.  Trumpeter swans are also a regular visitor and they are even larger.  They don’t have the same social gathering approach as the geese so you won’t see them in their thousands.  However, they do sometimes travel in smaller groups.

I was driving out towards Fir Island when I passed a bunch of them in a field.  They were right next to a church which made for a convenient place to park without being in anyone’s way.  They were not far from the parking lot and seemed to be busy feeding.  Some immature examples were still showing their grey plumage but were well grown at this point.  A little dispute resulted in some noise and flapping of wings but it all settled down quickly when the important matter of eating took over.

Trumpeter Swans

The snow geese I mentioned in this post were not the only visitors we saw while up on Fir Island. Trumpeter Swans were also to be seen. They weren’t there in such numbers when we visited but I understand they are showing up at the moment. We saw a bunch of them on a muddy field which was not helping their white plumage out too much. Then a second group flew overhead and eventually landed in the same field. I was able to get a few shots as they flew across. The long necks make them easy to distinguish from the geese we saw before.