Restoration efforts in Ontario, Canada, have helped a once-vanquished population to flourish. And they have been sighted in new habitats in the United States, too. There are more than 1,000 trumpeters in Ontario that headed north last month, many to raise their next brood. Restoration projects have also been successful in the United States, in the upper Midwest states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio and Michigan, returning swans to at least some of the areas they inhabited before Europeans arrived in North America. The natural population in Alaska, which became … Continue reading →

The River Otter (Lontra canadensis) is perhaps best known as the most playful member of the weasel family. If you have not had the good fortune of seeing otters in the wild, I am sure that many of you have enjoyed them in zoos or have seen videos of otters sliding down icy chutes in the winter or laying around on their backs pawing with their legs in the air or engaging in other appealing antics. I was fortunate to be able to photograph one of these fascinating mustelids at … Continue reading →

In 1995, we added a survey of eagles wintering in the interior to our annual swan count. We now have a 25 year history of primarily Bald Eagles using similar open water areas where the swans and other waterfowl congregate, but we do have a much smaller count of Golden Eagles in the general areas as well. While numbers in the interior are expectedly much  less than the large aggregations at coastal salmon spawning sites, we have noticed a generally increasing number of eagles in the interior since starting our … Continue reading →