By Dan Zarlenga, Missouri Department of Conservation
Photo caption: A trio of trumpeter swans wing their way across a Missouri wetland. Photo by Noppadol Paothong, Missouri Department of Conservation
You arrive at the venue, greeted not by clouds of smoke, but puffs of cumulus floating high on a ceiling of blue. The tables are ice floes, and that “cool” vibe is a crisp northern breeze. An audience of whispering reeds and grasses sway in anticipation of music to come.
The marsh presents its winter performance. Emerging from the rhythm of wind and bass line of flowing waters, a dominant trumpet line—improvised yet with purpose—begins to resonate in the openness. More low and rounded voices join; the trumpeters begin a call-and-response dance of tonality. They evolve slowly into an understated refrain of nature’s music, evoking the unhurried, suggestive tones of Miles Davis.
The performers are trumpeter swans. Marshes and wetlands, their venue. It’s hard not to be awed by these stately birds. With their extraordinarily long necks stretched straight out ahead of them, trumpeters sport wingspans of up to eight feet. Their brilliant white bodies glisten in the low winter sun.
In this area, Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary on the Mississippi River in West Alton is one of their most common performance venues. Trumpeters join us from late November until late March. They spend much of their time foraging in shallow water for vegetation, roots, seeds, and insects.
Once, these magnificent birds filled Missouri’s marshes—flourishing as summer breeders in northern parts of the Show-Me State. They nested commonly throughout the Midwest. However, years of overhunting and loss of habitat nearly silenced their music.
Today, trumpeter swans are considered critically imperiled in our state and a species of conservation concern. The ones we currently hear are winter migrants, traveling musicians, which makes their music an even rarer treat.
Numbers for trumpeter swans are on the increase today, though it’s a slow build. Wildlife agencies and conservation partners in the Upper Midwest began restoring swan populations by protecting breeding habitat and strategically relocating trumpeter swans.
Flying is instinctual for swans, but migration is learned. Young swans follow the lead of parents and other experienced adults. When the species was wiped out across much of its range in the early 1900s, migration routes disappeared with the birds that knew them.
But this melody of memories didn’t truly die. Small, surviving populations in Alaska and western Canada still carried that knowledge. Eggs and young swans were relocated to restored wetlands in the Upper Midwest, where they imprinted on those places and raised families of their own on these new homes. When those adults led their offspring south for winter, welcoming stopovers like Missouri became part of a new migration. The routes were relearned— one generation at a time—and our wetlands became part of the birds’ shared repertoire once again.
Trumpeter swans are still improvising on Missouri’s vibe; discovering where water stays open, which fields offer safe harbor, and when seasonal handoffs cue the time to move on. But their notes carry across our wetlands again.
The trumpeters call, and Missouri’s landscape responds—nature’s musical phrase fulfilled.