BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. (AP) - Trumpeter swans are making migration stopovers in western Missouri this winter.
The Missouri Department of Conservation said four rare trumpeter swans were spotted recently at Lake Remembrance in Blue Springs.
Larry Rizzo, a natural history biologist for the department, said he has been getting more reports of trumpeter swans migrating through Missouri, and that their numbers have been peaking in December.
Trumpeters are the largest waterfowl in North America with wing spans up to eight feet.
Hundreds of thousands of geese and ducks migrate through western Missouri and eastern Kansas each fall and winter. In comparison, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there about 1,600 trumpeters nesting in Canada and about 500 nesting in northern and western states.