IMHO, the redwing blackbirds had no right to harass the trumpeters. The swans were just passing by the bird’s nest area on their way to their own nest when the irate parents began dive bombing them and landing on their tails. They never attacked the cygnets and the adults were certainly not in any real danger. It just seemed like a case of blackbird bullying.
FUZZ Ever since a pair of trumpeter swans first appeared on our pond in Tottenham and I learned that they were from the Wye Marsh in Midland, Ontario, I’d been meaning to go there and photograph the cygnets. Finally, some four summers later, when I heard a resident trumpeter pair had a clutch of four babies, I raced to the marsh to try and capture them at the crack of dawn. I could’ve slept in. They were nowhere to be found until their mid-afternoon feeding time. Then the family would come cruising into the feeding area and chow down for about half an hour. They were comfortable with onlookers so there was no trouble moving around them to get close and down low for a better angle. The parents kept a watchful eye but it was more for trouble from below in the form of snapping turtles than from a photographer. When they left, I followed along as far as I could, snapping photos of them in procession until they swam away down one of the channels. I headed home but returned two more days that week – still driving up in the dark, still hoping to find them in the morning golden hour of light. But each time I ended up hiking around the marsh – cygnet-less until midday. This summer I’m sleeping in.
