One of my favorite places on the planet is Yellowstone National Park, and one of my favorite birds is the trumpeter swan. This small flock of trumpeters is part of a small group of resident swans living in Yellowstone. At one time, seeing even one trumpeter was a big deal since they were hunted to near extinction. In 1933, there were only 70 individual swans known to exist until a flock of several thousand were found in Alaska.
As our climate changes, Yellowstone is now warmer in the winter than it used to be. The open rivers of the park have always been great wintering habitat for trumpeter swans since the lack of ice allows them to easily feed on submerged vegetation. But with warmer winters, there is more open water all over the west, allowing the swans to spend much more of their time outside the park.
Thankfully we still have great opportunities to photograph these wonderful birds that are the largest of all waterfowl throughout North America. Learn more about winter distribution of trumpeter swans from The Trumpeter Swan Society’s citizen science projects.