Though we have seen tundra swans in the region throughout November, I learned Thanksgiving week that some of them were actually transmitting the story of their journey through radio telemetry.

In northern Alaska, 10 tundra swans were captured recently and given neckbands with VHF radio transmitters. Each has its own radio frequency that can be used to identify it and enable researchers to track them with special radio receivers with hand-held antennae.

These tagged swans are a project of Environmental Studies of the Piedmont, a Virginia-based education and conservation organization. John C. Whissel, biologist with ESP's Swan Research Program, has been communicating recently with Neal Mundahl, biology professor at Winona State University, and Michael Alfieri, assistant biology professor at Viterbo University in La Crosse.

Whissel asked them to help in the project by tracking the tagged swans as they stop in the Coulee Region on their migration toward the East Coast. Both eagerly agreed, and they were provided with VHF receiving equipment by Kevin Kenow at the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse.

When I saw the professors and students from Viterbo and WSU at the Brownsville, Minn., overlook along Highway 26 a couple days before Thanksgiving, I recognized the antennae and, of course, I had to know what they were tracking.

After introductions and a brief history of the project, I learned that they had just received the signals from two of the collared swans in front of the overlook. Other students from Viterbo detected a third swan on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River near Goose Island.

A fourth tagged swan was suspected to be near Alma, Wis., and tracking data indicated at the time that three more were still moving through the Dakotas and western Minnesota. Amazingly, the other three collared swans had already made it to their winter destination off the coast of North Carolina.

With some 40,000 swans in the population that migrates from Alaska and northern Canada to the Atlantic Ocean, it is probably a good thing that they don't all come through here at once. But clearly the Upper Mississippi River's rich beds of arrowhead tubers, wild celery and other aquatic plants make it a vital feeding stopover.

Around 10,000 tundra swans can be here during the peak of the migration. They spend several days to a few weeks feeding and resting on the river and in nearby farm fields. It is easy to see why their arrival here has become such a celebrated event. After talking with the telemetry team at the overlook, I met a couple who had traveled 500 miles to see the swans and they were very happy to be here.

I wondered how many people living right around here have never seen the thousands of tundra swans that gather at our doorstep. I know I have only understood the magnitude of the event in the past few years.

I couldn't help commenting as thousands of the swans suddenly flew above the river one day, "You only see this sort of thing on television." But there it was — right in front of our eyes.

Walking on ice

The swan spectacle might have been uplifting last week, but the sight of all the ice on the river so soon was a little disconcerting. I can remember a few times when first ice came around deer hunting season, but in the past several years it seems like serious ice has usually arrived much later.

But there it was, and the exceptionally cold days and nights ensured that the ice covered the more sheltered parts of the river. Where there was enough current and wind, though, the surface remained ice-free and that was a blessing for the swans. They would have to leave if they couldn't get at the tubers and plants on the river bottom.

The swans were indeed mostly absent from many of the shallow areas along the river south of Brownsville but thousands of them were still paddling around in the open water farther out. In fact, some of them took advantage of the ice. Hundreds could be seen loafing and preening on the new "shorelines" along the edge of the ice.

I even saw a few swans paddling in small openings in the ice where warmer water had thawed out a hole. They had their own private feeding patches as long as the tubers lasted underneath. Then they would waddle around on the ice looking for another feeding hole, reminding me of ice fishers searching out a new hotspot.

As you might imagine, if the swans were walking on the ice, a few brave souls were also trying the same thing. As early as Nov. 22 a few ice fishers were already on the ice near the La Crosse Municipal Airport and on a sheltered bay on Goose Island south of La Crosse.

I spoke to one fellow fishing alone on Goose Island. He told me the ice was a couple inches thick, but he wasn't getting any bites. More tracks in the snow indicated others also had tried and given up.

While the ice is still that thin, it is rather dangerous. It might be barely safe one place and way too thin a few feet away. Really thin — I saw one of those tundra swans break through! No big deal for a swan, but it hardly seems worth the risk for people until the ice is a little more dependable.

Whaditiz

Obviously FALSE. An inch and a half to 2 inches of ice might hold a person, but it is not very dependable. Currents or warmer water under the ice can thin it quickly and the thickness may vary from one spot to another. Be careful!

Contact Jim Solberg at nitefrogger@charter.net or (608) 782-2560.