Calls of the Wild Ones
The last Tuesday in November of 2011, while the weather was still nice, I made a visit out to the Stillwater Wildlife Refuge, near Fallon Nevada. Stillwater, with its numerous isolated wetlands is an important area for migrating shorebirds and has been designated by the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network as a site of international importance.
As I was approaching the Auto Tour, which takes you to several viewing areas, I noticed a number of large white birds on the water. From a distance, they appeared to be the American white pelican that is very common to the lakes and streams in Northwestern Nevada.
After setting up my Nikon D90 with the 500mm lens on the tripod and getting out my bird identification book, I realized that these were Tundra swans.
Tundra swans breed and summer in the coastal plains of Alaska and Canada. As winter approaches, they fly south to areas where their food sources of aquatic plants, mollusks and arthropods are more readily available.
During breeding season, the Tundra swan sleeps mostly on land. However in the winter, it sleeps on the water where it is better protected from predators.
Immature Tundra swans are duller in appearance with grey feathering mixed with the white.
Tundra swans are known to become very vocal when foraging in flocks and will make excited calls to those arriving or departing, sounding similar to the honking of the black goose. On this day, it was very noisy at the quiet Stillwater Refuge.
What an interesting day to watch these large birds flying in for a landing and then running on the water to get airborne.
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Photographs Make Great Gifts
With my Nikon and tripod, my goal is to recreate the scene as it appears in nature, to preserve in a photographic image the awesome, yet simplistic beauty of the scene that waits around a bend or over a hill. Sometimes it's a colorful landscape, and many times I'm allowed in the presence of the numerous creatures that adapt to life in the wild.
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