For more than three long years Stefan Foerster has been waiting to behold a site like the one he witnessed on Tuesday - four young trumpeter swans with their parents nearby.
The area supervisor for the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA) could hardly contain his excitement Tuesday when he entered the Mac Johnson compound and saw the trumpeter swan mates and the four young birds.
"This definitely makes my year," he said as he surveyed the group on the small pond of the enclosure. "This is amazing."
Since the introduction of the Ontario Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project at the Mac Johnson Wildlife Area, when two swans were transferred there in July 1999, the goal of a successful breeding program has been met with disappointment after disappointment.
The first spring after the pair arrived the eggs were not fertilized properly and didn't hatch. The second year the female, Millie, lost her mate, Mac, just before breeding. But this year may have been the most disappointing to date.
Just three days before the hatch of six eggs was to occur, raccoons got into the compound and destroyed the eggs.
"It was pretty sad," said Foerster. "It's difficult enough for a program to reintroduce a species into an area."
The arrival of the family of six is the first positive sign so far.
Although hopeful that the male, which has a visible No. 424 on its wing tip, joined up with a wild female, Foerster is almost certain that the unmarked female is another swan from the enclosure that paired up with 424 and left this spring.
"It is really nice to see them come back with the cygnets. It was good to see because this micro population dropped by four," Foerster said of four males that were lost from the project.
Foerster corrected himself later, saying the young birds that arrived Tuesday are hardly cygnets any longer, weighing close to 10 kilograms, an adult's full weight, after just four and half months.
The family of six was sharing the same limited space as Millie and Mac II after their arrival on Tuesday, much to the dissatisfaction of the former pair, but have since flown out of the compound and into the back pond.
There is still the possibility that three more pairs will return to Mac Johnson - all with young.
"The whole purpose of the program throughout Ontario is to bring it back to be self sustaining," Foerster said.
The provincial program was started in 1982 to reintroduce the rare birds. The Ontario Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project is headed by former Ministry of Natural Resources research biologist Harry Lumsden.
Last year in southern Ontario, between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario, there was an estimated population of 368 birds.
There are about 19 birds in this erea, between the Rideau Lakes and Mac Johnson.
The trumpeter swan is known for its black bill and is the largest flying bird in North America, with a wingspan of seven to eight feet. The bird is called a trumpeter because a loop in its larynx causes it to make a bugle sound.
Foerster said the young swans are in a bit of danger at the moment because of hunting season. The young birds do not yet have the pristine white colouring of the adults and tend to look a little like a goose.
"These birds like to fly low over the treetops," said Foerster as a warning to hunters.
Trumpeter swans are a protected species and cannot be hunted.
With a bit more good fortune the trumpeter swan project will continue to flourish at Mac Johnson and Foerster is feeling positive even for the near future.
"You never know, we might have more come in yet," he said.
And if that happens the birds might need a little outside help.
"Donation of corn would be greatly appreciated," said Foerster. "They're going to eat us out of house and home."
Published in Section A, page
1 in the Thursday, October 17, 2002 edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times.
**
TRUMPETER SWANS -
A breeding pair arrived on July 22, 1999. On May 14, 2000 these birds were
officially named
Mac and Milli
and eleven additional swans were released into the reservoir.
