72 Microseasons of the Pacific Northwest

Tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) are the most numerous swan species in North America, and each autumn the Pacific Flyway population converges on the wet bottomlands of the Pacific Northwest in late November. These birds — pure white, with a small yellow spot at the bill base that distinguishes them from trumpeter swans — nest on the Arctic coastal plain and travel thousands of miles to winter on Pacific Coast wetlands. Flocks of 50–500 birds are common, and the combined wailing, bugling calls of hundreds of swans carry for miles. Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge on the Columbia River floodplain, just north of Portland, is one of the premier tundra swan wintering sites in the Pacific Northwest. In late November the refuge's flooded river bottoms hold thousands of swans alongside large flocks of cackling Canada geese, wigeons, pintails, and mallards. The Carty Unit auto tour route allows close vehicle viewing of flooded fields holding birds. The refuge also hosts the rare dusky Canada goose subspecies and the only wintering sandhill crane flock in Washington state. In the Willamette Valley, tundra swans descend on the wet prairies and flooded fields of the Finley and Ankeny National Wildlife Refuges south of Corvallis. In Puget Sound, the lower Skagit Valley flats — especially the agricultural fields around Conway and Fir Island — host mixed flocks of tundra and trumpeter swans. Hearing the haunting, trumpet-like calls of hundreds of tundra swans at dusk, as birds circle and land in a flooded cornfield, is one of the most affecting wildlife moments of the Pacific Northwest winter.