Trumpeter Swan

 

Location: Humber Valley Pond in Summerlea Park

Date photo taken: 22 May 2015

Last weekend I found myself on the waterfront down by Tommy Thompson Park and I'm pretty sure there was a family of 5 trumpeter swans hanging out in the bay. They were a little too far out to say for sure, but I checked the park's website and the 2019 Bird Nesting Report confirms that there were two active nests located that year. This is pretty exciting because until relatively recently, these swans were extinct in Eastern Canada. Native to Ontario, hunting and habitat loss led to their disappearance in the wild about 200 years ago, but in the 1980s efforts were undertaken to reintroduce them. While their numbers are still dwarfed by the more common mute swan, which is an invasive species, it's nice to see that they are successfully breeding, even in the city.