Hundreds of tundra birds visit Moraine State Park
MUDDY CREEK TWP — From the Route 422 Bridge overlooking Moraine State Park, a photographer noticed a rustle in supposed snow around Lake Arthur.
“I thought they were snow banks on the shore until I looked through my camera,” said Matthew Mann, a member of the group Friends of Moraine State Park.
He saw instead tundra swans that have stopped on their migration back to Canada and Alaska. Members from the Friends of Moraine State Park have been photographing the birds this week.
“They definitely surprised me. I was walking down the North Country Trail from the breast of the Lake Arthur dam, and I didn't realize they were so close to the shore,” Mann said. “It startled me, and they all huddled on a frozen section of the lake. I'd estimate there were 75 to 100 swan near me.”
Mann said the tundra swan is an annual visitor for the park, but usually not for very long, as Lake Arthur serves as little more than a pit stop on their grander migration.
According the National Audubon Society, the birds are named after the arctic tundra of Alaska and Canada, where they nest in the summer.
While the swans do fly south for the winter, they don't fly to notably hot places, and stay in parts of the United States where they can find some food.
“Destruction of southern wetlands has reduced its former food sources in wintering areas, but it has adapted by shifting its habits to feeding on waste products in agricultural fields,” the society said on its web page.
“The lake also needs to be open water at Moraine for them to stop, as they eat aquatic plants,” Mann said.
Mann said from his trek around the park in search of more of the birds, he estimated there to be about 500 of the swans staying in a Lake Arthur and coexisting with the native duck species.
“I really enjoyed their body forms when they would fly overhead. It was with slow beating wings and almost gliding like an eagle overhead with stretched out necks,” Mann said. “They are very majestic and calm. When in groups on the lake, they seemed very talkative with each other.”
Mann said the birds are a sight worth braving the cold temperatures to see.
“During flight they have wing spans bigger then most herons and hawks, and their sound is very unique,” Mann said. “I think anyone could appreciate them.”
Here is some basic information from the National Audubon Society's website about the tundra swan:Conservation status: StableFamily: Ducks and geeseHabitat: TundraDiet: Seeds and plantsEggs: Usually 4 to 5Incubation: 31 to 32 days
