The Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River have Produced Another Family

The Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) on the Tuolumne River have produced a family. I've been watching the swans for a couple of years; they live in an old quarry pond across the Tuolumne River at the west end of the Tuolumne Parkway Trail in Waterford. They have apparently always been a pair, and last year they had three or four cygnets. I think that only one survived in the end, and eventually it left for other places. Then, for the last couple of months I've only seen one swan. I assumed (or hoped) that the other was tending a nest somewhere in the thickets along the pond. It turns out that I was right because earlier this week both swans could be seen in river Tuolumne River next to the pond, and they were trailing cygnets! There were four of them.

Mute Swans produce ambivalent feelings among birders and ecosystem managers. They are beautiful birds, with many myths and legends, especially in European culture. That is because they are native to Europe. They were brought to America as domestic waterfowl, part of the landscaping for rich estates. But of course many escaped and established feral populations, and as such they have caused a lot of damage by eating up much of the available forage, and displacing other species. There have been many efforts in the eastern United States to control their populations. I don't know what they are doing in California about them. For the time being, there are only a few showing up on the EBird reports in the region (Dawson Lake has been another dependable spot for seeing them).