The tundra swans that breed in the western arctic migrate thousands of miles to our west coast, gracing the skies and waters of California and scattered inland regions of Montana, Idaho and Utah. Close to two hundred of them were counted gliding on the Bear River wetlands near the Great Salt Lake last week. Other times, counts are in the thousands. The populations that breed in the eastern arctic travel to the Great Lakes and, mostly, the midAtlantic coast, some stopping over at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Park in Maryland these days, and are iconic on the Chesapeake Bay. Our other native swan, the larger trumpeter, far more local, was brought back from the brink of extinction beginning […]