Virginia Lake

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I love swans. I just do. My heart always skips a beat when I see them on a lake. I love their wild sounds, their warbled cries, whistles, and bugles. This recording was captured today, January 14th, 2025, and is two hours in length (for paid subscribers). It captures the sound of swans, geese and ducks.

Here we have Virgina Lake. Few people know it by name. It’s not listed on most maps. It is the centerpiece of Wapato Access Greenway (or Wapato Park, for short) on Sauvie Island, just north of Portland, Oregon:

In my experience the Tundra Swans settle in here best on foggy winter days. They don’t tolerate noisy humans on the shoreline. It’s hard to get close enough to them to get a photo with good detail.

Juveniles have dusky brown heads and necks:

Tundra swans look very similar to Trumpeter Swans, but are differentiated by their higher pitched bugle calls, and a yellow teardrop on their bill (often hard to spot in the field).

Like almost all of my recordings, this has been edited to sound as pre-industrial as possible, without sacrificing fidelity.

If you like the sound of swans as much as I do, here’s a recommended list of previous recordings:

Oaks to Wetlands Trail Soundwalk

Ridgefield Swans

Swan Songs

That’s all for now. Be well, friends.