Trumpeter Swan at Lake Hodges and probable greasy origin

Thursday morning there was an e-bird report with photo of an adult trumpeter swan at the east end of Lake Hodges near Escondido. I am there now, at 2:00 p.m.. to check the bird out and see if there’s any way to see if there are any bands or wear or other issues that one can easily see on it, and I cannot see any. However, it is assumed that these various adult trumpeters that have turned up mostly in North County in the last few years on several occasions are presumed to be from the feral released group of birds from Lake San Marcos. Currently the bird is at around 33.056466,-117.076877, way up near the farthest reaches of the embayment which gets closest to interstate 15. Probably a third of a mile west of the pedestrian bridge that goes over that arm of the lake, although it actually goes over willows more than it goes over water, and that is just west of the interstate. Getting a view of this arm requires a long walk from the Bernardo Drive rec center and tennis court area on trails that first go northwest and then curl back east along the south edge of this arm, which is what I did. It may be possible to get virtually within view of where the bird is from the north side of the embayment in the neighborhood where Avenida Sierra is and hopefully there’s an end of a dead end street or between a house where one could scope straight down onto the embaymentt from there without making the long hike, though I don’t know this for a fact, and one would be quite a long distance away but scopable. Ditto looking west northwest from the pedestrian bridge you could probably see the swan right now, but it would be a small speck.

Farther west on this arm of the lake there are plenty of waterfowl and a bunch of ibis, and slightly farther west still there was an adult bald eagle circling around.

Again, the most likely scenario is this is a wandering feral released bird, or an offspring of such, from Lake San Marcos. Probably.

Paul Lehman, San Diego