You might think that during the short and often damp, foggy days of the winter months here in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley there isn’t all that much to see. Or that while the Dungeness Spit and its National Wildlife Refuge offer terrific birdwatching, there’s not much bird activity in the farms and wetlands a bit inland. Maybe I can interest you in a burgeoning population of trumpeter swans?
Once hunted to near extinction in North America with as few as 70 birds in 1933, the trumpeter swan population rebounded to over 63,000 birds today. These massive birds are the heaviest of all waterfowl, and the heaviest and longest native bird of North America. With 7 foot wingspans and an average weight of 25 pounds, watching the birds take to the skies is quite something.
From November through March, Sequim is host to as many as 250 trumpeter swans. But that wasn’t always the case. It wasn’t until the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count in 1982, that any sighting of the swans were recorded – a whopping four of them. It wasn’t until 2005 that the numbers jumped into double digits, with triple digits being the norm only since 2011.
Arriving in November, the trumpter swans forage in local farm fields, pastures and wetlands, before heading north to Canada and Alaska in March. So grab a camera, put on your boots and drive the country roads around Sequim.
I live off Lake Farm Road and spotted four swans land in the Lake on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.
Wish I had my camera, they were huge!