Turnagain Arm: A sanctuary for migrating swans

Jim Magowen/Turnagain Times A family of Trumpeter Swans including two cygnets feed at a rest stop in Potter Marsh. Trumpeter Swans mate for life and migrate in family groups. Trumpeter Swans lay up to seven eggs but only two or three cygnets usually survive the nesting season.

By Jim Magowen
Turnagain Times Correspondent

October is swan season along Turnagain Arm. It takes a lot of food to fuel 22 to 28 pound birds for a flight of as much as a thousand miles or more and Turnagain Arm is a popular fuel stop for Trumpeter and Tundra Swans on their southward migration.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska Department of Fish and Game about 25,000 Trumpeter and several times that number of Tundra Swans nest in Alaska.
“The Service has been counting swans every five years since 1975 and the results are very encouraging,” said Julian Fisher, Chief of the Anchorage Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The numbers are increasing.”
A 1980 edition of Robert H. Armstrong’s Guide to The Birds of Alaska reported 4,000 to 5,000 Trumpeters nesting in Alaska, which confirms this.
From late September until late October or early November, migrating swans—usually Trumpeters, the largest waterfowl on the continent—can be observed along the Arm. Trumpeter Swans are larger than Tundras with an all black bill, usually with a pink ‘lip’ between the upper and lower mandible. The smaller Tundra Swans have a yellow spot at the back of the bill extending to the eye.
Turnagain swans are often quite accommodating photographic subjects as they feed off the bottom of ponds and marshes, often within fifty yards or less from the Seward Highway. They churn the bottom with their feet loosening plants growing on the bottom. The length of the swan’s neck effectively limits the depth where they can feed, which helps keep them in the shallow water near the road.
While they dunk as deep as their long necks can reach, with their tails sticking straight up, ducks swarm around them feeding on churned up vegetation floating to the surface, prompting one excited tourist to ask the photographers, “Did you get the babies?”
The swans are usually pretty tolerant of these freeloading ‘dinner guests’, but occasionally a duck pushes it and a snapping swan sends the duck scurrying to get out of reach.
The real swan ‘babies’ or cygnets, which look almost as large as the adults, are easily recognized by their gray plumage, which takes about two years to turn solid white.
Swans are occasionally brought into the Bird Treatment and Learning Center due to mishaps on the migration. After wrestling a nearly six foot long Trumpeter Swan from a kennel, her first encounter with one, all one volunteer could say was “Wow! This bird is really big and hard to control when it wraps its neck around you.”
Long telephoto lenses are usually best for photographing swans. Photographers with 400, 500 and 600 mm lenses are a common sight along Potter Marsh when the swans are feeding beside the road. Better results in close up swan photography are often achieved by increasing the exposure two thirds of a stop.
In addition to Potter Marsh, as the migration progresses swans gather on other ponds along the Seward Highway, from just past the Girdwood turnoff to the head of Turnagain Arm. Trumpeter Swans winter in the warm waters from Cordova to as far south as the Columbia River in Washington.
“An unusual sighting, said Fisher, “was a wintering pair on Kenai Lake near Copper Center.”
Wintering in Alaska results in an ironic in Haines where a number of Trumpeters winter. In November, swans and eagles often feed within three or four feet of each other. Eagles engorged on late run chum salmon, their preferred food, ignore the swans. There are, however, almost no successfully nesting swans in the area. Before the spring salmon runs begin, the eagles eat all the eggs and young swans.
“Trumpeter Swans migrate in family groups, not huge flocks,” Fisher said. “A group of 15 was seen flying over midtown Anchorage over the weekend, and possibly the same group was seen flying up Turnagain Arm.”
Swans gather and feed along Turnagain Arm for up to a week or more before continuing south. When getting ready to take off, Trumpeters will start up and down head bobbing and ‘honking’ to alert each other that they are about to leave. A graceful line of white birds, long necks stretched straight out, like huge arrows rising from a pond is a beautiful sight and a great photograph, if you can get it.