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A flotilla of trumpeter swans cruises on little Magness Lake east of Heber Springs. (Joe Mosby photo) Arkansas to welcome Iowa trumpeter swans Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 By Joe Mosby The trumpeter swan picture in Arkansas is expanding. The number of handsome birds coming to that tiny little lake near Heber Springs keeps growing, and now there are plans for encouraging the birds to winter elsewhere in The Natural State. The notable upcoming happening is bringing some young trumpeters from Iowa to two locations in Arkansas for release. One group of 10 or so swans will be let out at the mill pond in Boxley Valley in western Newton County. This is on the upper Buffalo River. They will be released Wednesday, according to Karen Rowe, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's nongame migratory bird biologist. Ten or so other young trumpeters will be released at Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge the next day - Thursday, Rowe said. Holla Bend is a short distance southeast of Dardanelle in Yell County. The swans are being brought to Arkansas by personnel of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Trumpeter swans have adapted so well in Iowa that their numbers have grown impressively. The possibility of some Iowa birds being moved to Arkansas came forth at a conference of the Trumpeter Swan Society in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in October 2005. The new project in Arkansas is a cooperative one involving the Iowa DNR, AGFC, the National Park Service's Buffalo National River and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There is something of a problem behind all this. The trumpeter swans that have been restored in the upper Midwest are deficient with their migrating instincts. Most hang around their normal areas in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan when the weather gets cold. Food is scarce under snow and ice, so supplemental feeding takes place, partly by public demand. Food handouts over a long period are never desirable with wildlife, most biologists will tell you. The still unexplained migration of trumpeter swans to the Heber Springs area began in the early 1990s and has spurred waterfowl biologists to look at encouraging more of these wintertime flights to the South. The theory for the Iowa birds being moved to Arkansas is that they are young, and they may return to these areas even if they join other trumpeters in warmer months to the North. In the past couple of winters, two or three trumpeters have visited the Boxley Valley mill pond, and this winter one or two have been seen on an oxbow lake at Holla Bend, which borders the Arkansas River. Trumpeters are the largest members of the swan family. They have black bills and noses, with a faint red or salmon-colored line along the edge of their bill. In contrast, the more numerous tundra swans, formally called whistling swans, are smaller and have yellow dots on each side of their bills. Mute swans, not natives of North America but descendants of escapees from zoos and parks, have orange bills with black knobs at the upper base. All of these swans are rare in Arkansas. More than a hundred are now in the Heber Springs area at Magness Lake, which covers 30 acres. It and the surrounding area are privately owned, with locked gates. But visitors can easily view the swans from a public road, where parking space is available in an S curve of the road. Stop, get out and listen as well as look. The trumpeter swans acquired their name for an obvious reason - their distinctive calls, which are frequent. To reach the swans and Magness Lake, drive east on Arkansas Highway 110 from its intersection with Arkansas Highways 5 and 25 just east of Heber Springs. Go 3.9 miles from the intersection to Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, marked with a white sign. Turn left on Hays Road, a paved county road. Magness Lake is about a half-mile down this road. -------- Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com. |
