{"id":26589,"date":"2014-09-16T06:02:58","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T12:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26589"},"modified":"2014-09-16T06:02:58","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T12:02:58","slug":"preening-trumpeter-swan-on-montanas-elk-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/16\/preening-trumpeter-swan-on-montanas-elk-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Preening Trumpeter Swan On Montana’s Elk Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 32 lbs the Trumpeter Swan is North America’s largest native waterfowl and it’s 6 1\/2 ft wingspan, bright white plumage and trumpet-like call make it a highly conspicuous bird.\u00a0 But by 1932, largely due to high demand for its skins and primary feathers,\u00a0only 69 birds were known to exist and those known birds were found near Yellowstone National Park which led to the establishment of nearby Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in 1935.\u00a0 Since that\u00a0time their numbers have\u00a0rebounded to about 46,000.\u00a0 I took these photos last week at Elk Lake which is adjacent to the refuge.<\/p>\n

I often see a few of these magnificent birds on my visits to the Centennial Valley but due to their shy nature and efforts by the refuge to protect them from disturbance I rarely (as in never) get anywhere near them.\u00a0 But that changed late last Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"trumpeter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/10, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon\u00a0EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As I approached the lake in my pickup I noticed a pair of swans at the edge of the\u00a0water near the road and\u00a0right next to an often-used camping area.\u00a0 Normally there wouldn’t be any swans anywhere near this busy spot but due to recent cold and blustery weather the camping area was deserted and I’m sure the shallow water at that end of the lake attracted the birds.\u00a0 As I stopped my pickup to observe the swans, both birds watched\u00a0my vehicle\u00a0carefully for about a minute and then began to preen.<\/p>\n

They each\u00a0had their backs to me the entire time and\u00a0their bright white plumage against the dark water made for a very difficult exposure in the afternoon sun but I was still pleased with some of my images.\u00a0 Each of these photos is of the larger male and this bird, like many (though not all) adults, shows a salmon-red streak along the rear upper edge of the lower mandible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"trumpeter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon\u00a0EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was almost mesmerized as I watched them use that tremendously long neck as a preening aid to easily reach every part of their body as they groomed.\u00a0 Their movements are slow and extremely graceful when compared to most other birds, even when they shake or “rouse”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In this\u00a0image\u00a0I like the wispy feathers wrapped over the top of his bill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"trumpeter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon\u00a0EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here he’s preening under his\u00a0wing and I like the pose despite the small feather sticking up in front of his right cheek.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"trumpeter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon\u00a0EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At one point he plucked a feather from his flank, dropped it, and then watched it float away behind him as he continued to groom.\u00a0 The preening session lasted for 19 minutes and then both birds slowly swam out into deeper water to feed.\u00a0 As I look at these images I realize that they do not do justice to the tremendous size of these birds.\u00a0 They are huge!<\/p>\n

I won’t soon\u00a0forget being allowed so close to these wild,\u00a0quintessential\u00a0swans\u00a0that came so very close to extinction.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I won’t soon forget being allowed so close to these wild, quintessential swans that came so very close to extinction.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,8,1493,360,1587],"tags":[555,2226,2228,220,255,263,1588,2227],"class_list":["post-26589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-trumpeter-swans","tag-centennial-valley","tag-cygnus-buccinator","tag-elk-lake","tag-montana-2","tag-preening","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-trumpeter-swan","tag-yellowstone-national-park"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/trumpeter-swan-6025-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6UR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}