Wye Marsh - July 2024
This past Friday I had an early start to hit two locations for a long form video I’m working on about the history of Trumpeter swans in Canada.
Stop one was the Aurora Community Arboretum, a gorgeous hundred acres in the floodplain of the east Holland River with 500 tree species / varieties on display… none of which I was actually there for. My target was an unassuming plaque next to a stormwater pond. It was unveiled in late 2023 to commemorate the man at the centre of trumpeter swan reintroduction in Ontario - Harry Lumsden.
That captured and with some time to kill, I hung out at the stormwater pond to capture some scenic shots as the sun crested the trees and mist started to plume from the surface of the water. There was a nesting platform in the middle of the pond as well, but I was too late in the season for any swans or even much of any nest remains.
My second stop was further north at Wye Marsh, ground zero for trumpeter swan reintroduction starting in the late 1980s, but much more than that. Wye Marsh has become a hub of conservation in the region with lots of programs and initiatives. That includes their captive raptor care program - they look after a group of birds who, through injury or human imprinting, are no longer able to survive in the wild. I tried to get a photo of each of them that were on display through two layers of protective fencing.
Notably absent from the whole day were trumpeter swans themselves, though I walked the boardwalk a few times to see if I could catch any. Not actually a huge loss - over the years I’ve covered a lot of Trumpeter Swans at places like Leslie St Spit so grabbing them here wasn’t mission critical. There were, however, muskrats, queensnakes, bitterns, ospreys and bullfrog tadpoles. As ever Wye Marsh is bursting with life.