A Long Ways from Home

One of the four Tundra Swans hanging out at Kelowna–the drowsy bird on the left–was wearing a neck collar.

I sent the number, P944, to Patuxent, but it turns out that the bird has been under surveillance since November, when it arrived on the Kelowna waterfront. Russ told me today that the bird was banded as an adult female on July 29 of last year at the evocatively named King Salmon, Alaska–a site on Bristol Bay so remote that not even my good friend googlemaps can calculate the distance this bird has traveled.