Thousands of Tundra Swans make a pit-stop in Alymer during flight home

Local bird-watchers will be heading down to Alymer to see thousands of Tundra Swans migrate from the United States.

80,000 Tundra Swans, or whistling swans, are migrating from up north from Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Virginia and beside Delaware.

The birds are facing up to a 7,000 km journey and thousands are landing in Alymer over the course of the next week so they can eat some food, and rest, so they can prepare for the long journey back to their home in Alaska and the Arctic.

“They can’t do it in one big flight,” says Western University Biology Professor Chris Gulielmo. “They can fly several hundred kilometers at a time and then they have to stop and re-fuel all along the way. This is one of those traditional stops for them.”

Gulielmo adds that they never travel alone, “They go in family groups, the young will travel to the south with their parents and the mates will stay together.”

The swans will likely stay for about a week and then take off, but more and more birds can be spotted in the upcoming weeks.

“An individual would probably take 1-2 weeks to re-fuel itself before it would move on, it would leave depending on the weather conditions. The period to see them is around now for probably 3-4 weeks,” says Gulielmo.

Gulielmo says that the main watering hole is in Alymer and at Lake St. Clair at the Windsor-Detroit border.