It was about an hour before sunset when we arrived at Last Chance and set up our photography equipment. More than a hundred birds were visible on the river, with the late afternoon light catching the pure white of the mature adults beautifully.
The birds seemed wary when we walked down towards the bank, and moved off in another direction, some swimming, and some taking flight. But if we walked along the road they seemed tolerant of our presence, no doubt having seen plenty of humans and cars in that location.
Periodically some of the birds would seem to stand up on the water, stretching and flapping their wings, or would take off, fly a short distance, and land with another group of birds.
As sunset approached, the swans became more active, with more birds flying up and down the river to land in different locations.
Yellowstone National Park reported this year that "Participants in the West Yellowstone Christmas Bird Count tallied 190 trumpeter swans on the Madison River and nearby open waters adjacent to Yellowstone National Park on December 16th. The Madison and Yellowstone rivers within the park also provide favorable wintering habitat for trumpeters, most of which nest in northern Canada."
A few thousand swans are reported to winter throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Most of them are birds that nest and spend their summers in Canada. Read more about wintering Trumpeter Swans in Greater Yellowstone in my blog post of last January.
