Trumpeter swan on Yellowstone river
— — the largest waterfowl in North America, still here.
Not only on a wall.
“The trumpeter swan is the heaviest native bird in North America, with a wingspan that can reach eight feet. In the early twentieth century the lower forty-eight held fewer than seventy. The Greater Yellowstone population rebuilt slowly from refugia in the Centennial Valley and along the Yellowstone, Madison, and Snake. They overwinter on the open water.
Trumpeter swan on Yellowstone river, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The trumpeter swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native waterfowl on the continent, weighing twenty-five to thirty pounds with a wingspan that can reach eight feet. The Greater Yellowstone tri-state population, spanning Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, is the southernmost interior breeding group in the species' range. Swans winter on the unfrozen reaches of the Yellowstone, Madison, and Snake Rivers, where geothermal flow keeps the water open. Hayden Valley and the stretch above LeHardy Rapids are among the more reliable winter viewing sections inside the park.
By 1932 fewer than seventy trumpeter swans were known to remain in the lower forty-eight states, almost all of them clustered in the Centennial Valley of Montana and at Red Rock Lakes. Hunting for feathers and skins had collapsed the population. Recovery was slow. The Greater Yellowstone tri-state population now sits in the low hundreds of breeding birds, still vulnerable, and increasingly dependent on the geothermally warmed reaches of the park's rivers for winter survival. Cygnets fledge in October most years.
Trumpeter swans need open water through the winter, which in this part of the Rockies means rivers that don't fully freeze. The Madison, the upper Yellowstone above Hayden Valley, and the Firehole all carry geothermal input that keeps long stretches ice-free at temperatures well below zero. Swans concentrate in those reaches from November through March, feeding on submerged aquatic vegetation. In summer they spread out to nest on shallow ponds and slow river bends throughout the park's interior.