Mute Swan Family Winter Update

 In fall of 2020, I remember looking out over Wickford Bridge while walking home from a weeding job in downtown Framingham. The only animal in sight was a lone Mute Swan. I had seen Mute Swans in The Sudbury River long before that, but that was the last time i'de seen that swan alone. In February in 2021, while feeding the ducks in the river, I noticed the swan had found a mate. Two beautiful white birds sleeping on the ice.

In may, they had two cygnets (baby swans). The cygnets are still swimming alongside their parents as of January, 2022. It has been almost a year since they hatched. Mallard ducklings look and behave like adults after their first month of life. Same with Canada Geese. Mute Swan cygnets are born in the spring, and stay with their parents until the spring of the next year. When an animal has lots of babies and spends little effort on each one, they have evolved that way due to heavy predation. This must mean that for whatever reason, Swans do not get killed by predators as much as the other waterfowl in the area.

On the 19th, I saw the family again. The cygnets are still grey, but are the same size as the adults. The four of them were paddling along at the side of a sheet of floating ice, anchored to the riverbank by a patch of Phragmites. 

Mute swans are not native and were introduced by Europeans. They are an invasive species in some parts of North America. They have naturalized in most places, and native species have started adapting to live with the swans. In the Sudbury River, at least, they don't seem to be effecting the other native bird's populations much. There are probably 200 Canada Geese and a similar amount of Mallards, while i'm pretty sure this family of four makes up the river's full Mute Swan population. They seem to stay in the Wickford Bridge area of the river, sleeping in the reeds near route 90.

I'm not sure if I want mute swans here or not. Invasive or not, they do come from the Palearctic realm into the Nearctic Realm, and evolved alongside the ancestors of wolves, foxes, minks, and ducks that live here. The only thing that separates them is that rather that finding their way here by crossing a landbridge, they arrived because of humans. I guess I do'nt mind them as much as other invasive species like Japanese barberry and oriental bittersweet.