Illustration from National Geographic's Field Guide to the Birds of North America
Tundra Swan
Cygnus columbianus
March 9, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon.
The most common swan in the West and the only native swan in the East. Large, all white; bill black, usually with small yellow spot in front of eye. Length: 48-55 in (120-140 cm).
Mellow bugling call, hoo-ho-hoo, usually heard from a flock of migrating birds.
Arctic tundra; winters on marshy lakes and bays.
Breeds in Alaska and far northern Canada east to Baffin Island. Winters from southern Alaska south to Nevada, Utah, and Baja California and on mid-Atlantic coast; rare on Gulf Coast of Texas; occasional on Great Lakes.
Because they breed in remote and little disturbed areas, tundra swans have so far escaped the fate of the closely related trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator) of the West, which was reduced to near extinction by hunting and habitat destruction.
