The Trumpeter Swan is North America's largest native waterfowl — pure white, black-billed, with a wingspan pushing seven feet and a resonant, French-horn call that gives the species its name. Trumpeters were gone from Michigan for over a century, reduced continent-wide to a few dozen known birds by the 1930s.
Michigan's restoration program in the late 1980s — famously hatching eggs collected in Alaska — rebuilt a breeding population that now numbers in the thousands, centered on quiet marshes and lakes across the state. Distinguish them from the introduced Mute Swan by the all-black bill and straight neck; Mutes have orange bills with a black knob and swim with necks curved.
Aquatic vegetation almost entirely — pondweed, wild celery, and tubers pulled from the bottom with that long neck. Wintering birds also graze waste grain in fields.
Bill color: Trumpeters have an all-black bill meeting the eye; Mute Swans have an orange bill with a black basal knob. Trumpeters hold the neck straight, Mutes in a graceful curve with wings often arched.
By the 1930s fewer than a hundred were known south of Canada. Michigan reintroduced them beginning in the 1980s using eggs from Alaskan nests, and the state population is now securely in the thousands.
Trumpeter Swans are protected in Michigan, yes. The non-native Mute Swan is managed differently — it's considered invasive and can be aggressive toward native waterfowl and people.
Yes — Trumpeter Swans are present in Michigan in every month of the year. Numbers stay fairly steady from month to month. Birds are easier to detect in the breeding season, when they are singing and displaying, so a quiet winter month can feel emptier than the population actually is.
A cygnet. Cygnets are gray with a pinkish bill and stay with their parents through their first winter, whitening gradually over about a year. Michigan's Trumpeters descend from a reintroduction that began in the 1980s.
A bevy or a herd on the water, and a wedge in flight. Trumpeter families stay together through their first winter, so a group on a Michigan marsh is often two adults and their cygnets rather than an unrelated flock.
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