For the first time in nearly two centuries, trumpeter swans have successfully nested in the Blackfoot Watershed and we are proud to announce that seven cygnets are healthy and doing well! The humble beginnings of swan restoration to the Blackfoot began in 2003 with a concerned landowner and morphed into what we know today as the Blackfoot Trumpeter Swan Restoration Program, a collaborative effort of private landowners, local schools, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, Wyoming Wetlands Society, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Montana Wetlands Legacy and Blackfoot Challenge to release over 100 trumpeters into the watershed to establish seven breeding pairs of swans. After eight years, we are thrilled to bear witness to this momentous event.

To aid in fundraising for the Swan Restoration Program, a stunningly beautiful handmade quilt, donated by Patti Bartlett, a Seeley Lake teacher whose students have participated in learning about and helping release swans, will be raffled and 2 winners will be selected to hold and release a trumpeter swan on June 9th, 2012. The finished quilt is 56” x 72”. Raffle tickets sell for $20 each or three for $50. The drawing will take place on June 1st, 2012. To purchase, please contact the Blackfoot Challenge office by phone at 406-793-3900 or email: swan@blackfootchallenge.org Thank you for your support!

Blackfoot Challenge Quilt

Some of the Blackfoot trumpeters released this spring and summer have begun taking wing! Several of our young birds have left their release sites and taken their first flights, trying out their wings as means of transportation for the first time. Appropriately cautious, they have not yet gone far. They are simply hopping from wetland to wetland in the Ovando area, exploring new waters. Satellite radios on a few of them tell us where some are going, and we are sometimes able to go to the sites shown by the satellite locations and check on the birds directly. We have found that some are traveling in small groups, while others have flown by themselves to join swans at other wetlands.

This is an important time for these young swans, as they explore new territory and find out that they can move around under their own power. It is also a potentially dangerous time as they must avoid threats like power lines, fences, and other obstructions, learn how to land and take off safely, avoid predators in new sites, and interact with other swans, all while strengthening their flying muscles and improving their flight skills. But this learning period will be vital to their success as they begin to migrate south for the first time in a few short weeks!

If you observe swans during this time, especially if they are in places you don’t usually see them, please report your observations on the website. This could be important information and help us keep track of these young and now mobile birds!

This spring and early summer, biologists released 30 trumpeter swans on five different wetlands in the Blackfoot valley. The first release, on the Blackfoot WPA along Highway 200 east of Ovando, occurred in May. Over 90 students and their teachers from 6 schools in the watershed helped release the swans, while learning about swan biology and wetland ecology.

Each released swan wears a spiffy red neck collar with an individual letter and number code in white letters, as well as a matching leg band. This helps biologists track the movements and locations of individual swans as well as their fates, when sightings are reported by interested observers. For example, we have learned that some of the trumpeters previously released in the Blackfoot have spent their winters in southeast Idaho and southwestern Montana. We have also learned that several of our released swans have died, from collisions with powerlines, parasites and starvation, legal hunting and illegal shooting, and predation. We have not had sightings of several more, so it is unknown whether they are dead or alive.

However, several swans have also returned safely to the Blackfoot this year. There are at least 3 pairs that have established territories in the valley and will likely nest next year! There are a few more that are hanging out with the young swans that were released this spring, and may form pairs with some of them.

Eight of the swans released this year are also sporting satellite radios on their red and white collars. This allows us to keep tabs on the swans when they move, without having to rely on observations alone. This will be especially helpful when the swans begin to migrate out of the valley in the fall.

So far, of the 30 swans released this year, all but 2 are accounted for and near or at their release locations.

Thank you to all the folks that have turned in swan sightings this summer! The swans have been very visible along Highway 200; you can see them on the Blackfoot Waterfowl Production Area two miles west of the Highway 141 junction and ten miles east of Lincoln on a private pond. The cygnets will begin flying between wetlands as their flight feathers grow back in after their molt. Please continue to send in your swan sighting reports to the website or the Challenge office. This will help us keep tabs on the swans as they begin their preparations for migration.

I have worked on the Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project for two years and with exuberance, have witnessed the joy in numerous people’s faces as they grasp the magnificent white birds in their arms and help release them back into the forever wild wetlands of the Blackfoot Watershed. Until recently, I had never held one in my arms. Last Wednesday, I held trumpeter swan in my arms with all of its downy softness smooth against my arms and neck. I was the one feeling the swan’s graceful power and eventual surrender as he wrapped his neck around mine and rested his head gently on top of my head. I was the one so taken by this creature that it would forever inspire me. It was one of the most touching moments of my life, that feeling of being a part of something so wonderful, so much larger that yourself and to hold it in your arms. I have heard it described as a magical experience, to hold a swan. I have found no better way to describe this once-in-a-lifetime experience. For the rest of my life I will remember the day I held #5A6 in my arms as he captured my heart.