A winter “bomb” was forecast for my region of Ontario on December 23 and 24. Of course, I was worried about the friends and family travelling over the holiday season – but I was also worried about the swans on the waterfront.
There are the usual pair and their cygnets still there but also a number who have arrived presumably from farther north in search of open water. If the water in the whole territory froze they would not be able to find food below the surface. It’s possible they could just move farther south but at a certain point only deep water will remain thawed, and their necks are only so long.
I also know that there was higher than usual mortality among Mute Swans in Ontario due to starvation in the extremely cold winters of 2014 and 2015. What made me even more anxious was that flash freezes – which were also projected – can trap them in the ice and without an open water “runway” they can’t get into the air.
I believe the pen in the family I follow is about seven years old so she’s been through Canadian winters before, but I don’t ever recall hearing about a weather “bomb.” I was more worried about the cygnets, though, who being only five months old, have fewer survival skills and, as youth often are, sometimes more confidence than good judgement.
And so I was relieved to see them all on December 24. Their lower feathers were laden with chunks of ice and they looked a bit bedraggled, but they had made it through. There must have been some good preening that day because by December 25 they were ice-less and back to normal.