Trumpeter swans are the largest waterfowl in North America. The name of these iconic swans comes from the deep “trumpet” tones they can make when they forcefully exhale. The most common call is a nasal, single or double honking that is actually more like the sound of a French horn than a trumpet. It can be loud—but also endearing.
“We’re very lucky and very grateful to work with these lovely birds,” says Keeper Adam Fessinger. And, Webby and Dewey, our resident pair, like Fessinger and his fellow keeper Ariel Hong just as much. “When they recognize you, they’ll swim over,” Hong explains. “They absolutely recognize us,” Fessinger agrees. “They know us personally. They’re very smart, they’re very perceptive.”
The two swans came to the Zoo from different homes about seven years ago. Webby, the female, came from a rehabilitation center, and Dewey, the male, came from an aviary. Now the pair are 10 and 13 years old and can live for up to 35 years. Keepers tell them apart in three ways: Webby has lighter colored feet and is smaller overall than Dewey, and “she’s got what looks like a little more lipstick on her beak,” Fessinger says.
A long, peaceful life has not always been a given for trumpeter swans. About a century ago, these striking birds were hunted to near extinction in the wild. Like many white birds with exceptional down, their feathers were in very high demand for use in pillows and powder puffs and as decoration on hats. It is estimated that before conservation efforts brought the population back to sustainable levels, there were fewer than 100 trumpeter swans remaining in the U.S. Zoos have participated in swan restoration initiatives since the 1960s, helping boost the current population to around 60,000.
Like all trumpeter swans, Webby and Dewey enjoy a diet of bugs and leafy plants. In a wild lake, the swans would use their bills to tear leaves from plants growing in the lake bottom; here they pluck them from a skewer anchored in their habitat. They also dive for their favorite snack: meal worms. The meal worms sink to the bottom of the pond, and the swans “vacuum” them up. “They’re excellent little filter feeders,” says Fessinger. As in the wild, they use their bills to go along on the floor, feeding on whatever plants and bugs they find there.
Caring for the swans involves more than just providing the right food, Fessinger says. They also get materials, such as papyrus, to build nests with. If Dewey and Webby breed, they will share the task of looking after their young, as most swans do. Family units stay together through the chicks’ first winter so the adult birds can teach the young the route to traditional stop-over and wintering sites that have lakes with abundant aquatic plants. Most migration is by day, with trumpeter swans flying in a “V” formation and reaching air speeds up to 60 mph.
Webby and Dewey are homebodies, though, and comfortable in their refreshed habitat at the Zoo. The new space, thanks, in part to the Lowy family, has been years in the making and includes a fairytale pond with a working water wheel and a wooden bridge that connects two small islands. “It’s very awesome to finally have them out here,” Fessinger says. “We work with hundreds of different birds, and these two, I’ll tell you what: they have some of the biggest personalities and are some of the most fun birds at the Zoo.”