One of the greatest bird-watching spectacles during spring migration has to be, without question, the thousands of migrating tundra swans that come through northern Utah each and every spring.
Usually, in late February, small flocks of tundra swans start showing up on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and Farmington Bay with the population usually peaking around mid to late March.
This year, however, it appears the tundra swan spring migration is already underway, nearly a month early it seems.
I noticed small flocks of tundra swans on my travels today to both the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route and Farmington Bay WMA.
Although only an estimated few hundred swans were seen between both locations today, early bird watchers should be able to find a few swans at either location now.
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The swans today on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge were on the southeast corner of the auto tour route where most of the open water currently is located.
Finding the tundra swans at Farmington Bay is much easier as many of them were sitting on the main unit between goose egg island and the large parking lot to the south.
Having some kind of magnification is always helpful when viewing swans, either a spotting scope or binoculars, as sometimes the swans are quite a ways away like they were today.
Typically, as swan numbers increase, it’s not uncommon to have more up-close viewings of the tundra swans as sometimes they have been known to be fairly close to the roads, but those opportunities aren’t anything that can always be counted on so having some kind of scope is always helpful.
Both the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources puts on an annual swan day event, typically held on the 2nd Saturday of March, but this year’s events are in question due to the recent rise in covid cases lately so it’s unclear at this point if either agency will hold their respective event or not.
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I will be visiting both Farmington Bay and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge regularly so head on over to my subscribe page and sign up for email notifications if you haven’t already done so to keep up with any updates.
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