Is There a New Mute Swan Family or Not?

There is a mildly silly meme going around on Facebook about how many ducks are in the picture. Back in the real world, I've been watching the Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail for weeks now. The pair have produced a family for each of the last three years, and I've been watching their progress this year. A month or two ago they chased off their progeny from 2019, and the female disappeared for many weeks, no doubt watching her nest. The male spent most of his time chasing and harassing the Canada Geese who also inhabit the pond.

Then two days ago, the female reappeared, but I couldn't make out any young cygnets. It was the same when I saw the pair again today, but I took a picture anyway. Later I looked at the picture again, and now I ask, "Is there a new Mute Swan family this year or not?"

As far as the silly duck meme is concerned, it's sixteen. Really.

Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River: The Baby is Alright

It's been kind of a bittersweet year for the Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River where I walk most days. They had four cygnets last year, and three survived to adulthood. The kids moved on, but the parents remained at the quarry lake that has been their home for a number of years. This year they had only two babies, but one disappeared after only a few weeks.

The pair took the surviving baby onto the big river today, and I admit I was a little concerned. The river is flowing twenty times normal, at 6,000 cubic feet per second, and the current quickly swept them downstream and out of sight. I worried that the baby wouldn't be able to fight the current back to their home pond.

I'm happy to report that when I returned from my walk 90 minutes later that the swans were back in the pond and the baby was with them.

More Bird Babies to Report: Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River

I've been secretly a tiny bit worried for the past few days. There has been a pair of Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) living in the pond across from the west end of the Tuolumne River Trail for at least three years now. It's probable that they are domestic (Mute Swans are not native to North America; many are escaped "ornamental" birds), but this pair has been reproducing each spring, with four cygnets last year, three of whom survived to adulthood. For several weeks, the only swan visible was the male, who was doing a lot of territorial defense with the local Canada Geese, while the female presumably was nesting. But then even the male seemed to disappear.

This week my surveillance contact on the bluffs reported that the swans were back in action and they were trailing a little one! Mrs. Geotripper and I had to go down and check it out, zoom lenses in hand. At first we could only see the one cygnet staying really close to mama, but then then she turned and we saw the second little one.

We'll look in every so often to see how they are doing...

The Babies are All Grown: Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River

There was something new in the sky above the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail this morning. Large graceful birds were gliding over the water, and it took me a moment to realize who they were. The baby Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) have taken to flying!

I've been following this bird family ever since the late winter or early spring when the cygnets made their first appearance on the pond across from the western trailhead off Reinway Avenue in Waterford. The original brood included four babies, but one disappeared as the weeks rolled by. The other three thrived and are now nearly fully grown.

There is a certain ambivalence about the presence of Mute Swans here in the valley. They are not native to the region and are instead the offspring of European ancestors who were brought to America to be accessories in the landscaping of rich estates. The escapees have caused problems because they are voracious consumers of water plants (pounds per day) to the detriment of other freshwater bird species. I've suspected that the parents of these birds have clipped wings simply because I've never seen them flying except for a semi-gliding motion when chasing off of Canada Geese.

My last picture of the "teen-agers" was a chance capture of them flying above their water-bound parents. That's got to be a metaphor for something or another.

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).

Mute Swans and Clearing Storm at Dawson Lake, Sierra Foothills

Another storm came through this morning, one of half a dozen this month that have dropped five inches of rain on the valley floor. That's not a complaint, not in the least. The drought remains, and every drop counts. We are actually ahead of normal rainfall and snowpack for the first time in five years.

The sun came out in the late afternoon, so we ran up the road to Dawson Lake near La Grange in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It was windy and cold as the last of the storm clouds drifted away, so not many birds were out and about. There were two Mute Swans (Cygnus olor, which translates to "swan - swan") on the lake.

Mute Swans are the birds of legend and myth in Europe and Asia, but they are not native to North America. They were brought here in the 1880s for the "enhancement" of ponds and gardens. Many escaped, and they have spread to various localities across the country. Because of their voracious appetites and aggressive nature, they have displaced native birds, including some rare and endangered species.

Just the same, there are just two of them at Dawson Lake, and they are graceful beautiful birds. They were a very nice complement to the rippling lake waters and setting sun. The storms are clearing out, for now.

Birding Overseas: Mute Swan on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland

Bird activity is pretty quiet on my campus and in my neighborhood. I imagine it's nature catching her breath just before the migratory flocks begin arriving. So I'm digging into the archives to post a couple of birds I photographed on trips overseas over the last decade and a half. In the last post, we were introduced to Alpine Choughs on Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland. Today we have a bird that I've seen in my own neighborhood, the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor). In North America, these swans are considered an invasive species. When we saw them on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, it was in their natural habitat.

The Mute Swans are one of the largest of the waterfowl, and being as big as they are, they preserve better as fossils than many other birds. The fossils of their ancestors can be found in rocks as old as the Miocene epoch, around 20 million years ago.

The town of Lucerne was one of the cleanest, most beautiful cities I've ever seen. It's on shores of Lake Lucerne, a huge glacially formed body of water in the foothills of the Swiss Alps. The town preserves much of its medieval heritage including some beautiful walls, towers, and covered bridges. It's a marvelous walking city.

And if you look carefully, you'll see that the picture above also has a swan with a couple of cygnets.

Mute Swans on the Tuolumne River

I'm finding I might have a new favorite local birding site. A week or two back I was looking for some additional access on the Tuolumne River where it flows through Waterford. I knew that plans were on the boards for a two mile river trail, but I didn't realize there were plans for a park at the far end (I've spent a fair amount of time at Appling Park on the upstream side). But there it was on the GPS map: South Reinway Park just south of the town's high school. I went down to have a look.

It's not at all developed yet, so it consists of a large overgrown field, a smattering of oak trees on the bluff edge, and a steep cliff leading down to the floodplain of the Tuolumne River. There is fair amount of riparian habitat on the riverbed with lots of birding possibilities, but no access yet. The cliff is sheer. The view is nice, and extends across the river to a pond formed when a gravel quarry was abandoned. It filled with groundwater. I don't know if the Frantz Nursery allows access (their employee parking is adjacent), but I'll try to find out sometime.

I saw two Canada Geese the other day, but this morning the pair of water birds looked different, i.e. they were totally white. The zoom lens confirmed that they were swans, specifically Mute Swans (Cygnus olor). They are not native to North America, but have established breeding populations in many places. I don't know if these are escaped domestic swans, or feral ones.

In three quick visits to the site, I've seen a White-tailed Kite, a Red-tailed Hawk, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Western Bluebird, a Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, one or two kinds of Vireo, Yellow-billed Magpie, Northern Mockingbird, Scrub Jay, Turkey Vulture, European Starling, American Robin, Golden-crowned and White-crowned Sparrows, American Goldfinch, Crow, an Egret, and Canada Goose. A friend in the neighborhood reported a Bald Eagle a few days ago. Twenty-plus species in three short visits.

I expect there will be more in days and weeks to come!