| Trumpeter
Swans Note: In the past twenty
years, trumpeter swans have made a remarkable comeback in
British Columbia and Alberta and are now no longer considered
endangered.
Each April, the
area between Banff and Calgary is temporarily
home to both tundra (whistling) and trumpeter
swans as they migrate north.
Five ponds in particular seem to attract the
magnificent trumpeters on the route that I drive,
so that's where I spend much of my time in
mid-April.
The swans are suprisingly wary, so I usually
have to sneak out of my vehicle, set up my tripod
and 500 mm lens behind my car, then slowly move
around the corner of my car to use it as a sort
of blind as I photograph.
In most cases, the road is only about twenty
metres/yards from the edge of the pond, so using
my car as a blind is adequate for the
photography. Ideally, I would love to set up a
blind along the water's edge, but all of the land
surrounding each pond that the trumpeter's
frequent is private property.
Researchers at one of the ponds right along
the Trans-Canada Highway counted a record 120
trumpeters at one time on the water! However,
it's not always easy to tell the Trumpeters apart
from the Tundra swans...some ponds are full of
Trumpeters, others are full of Tundras and one or
two have a mixture of both.
These pictures are some of my favourites from
two years of trying to photograph the Trumpeters.
Hope you enjoy them!
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