Trumpeter swan’s rare Southland layover

Birders got a rare gift this month with the first Southland spotting of a trumpeter swan in decades.

Dennis Kroeplin, 63, eyed the big bird Dec. 23 on a morning hike by Hansen Dam in the San Fernando Valley.

“I thought, wow, that’s not a Canadian goose,” says Kroeplin, a former wildlife officer, who mistook the yellow band around its neck for trash. Kroeplin and a friend snapped photos (at www.sosensky.com/bird-photos/Swan_Trumpeter.htm).

Kimball Garrett, ornithological collections manager for L.A. County’s Natural History Museum, says the sighting is the first this far south since 1975. Trumpeters, known for their hefty weight, brassy call and angular head, used to roam the continent but now dwell mostly in Alaska, Canada and the Rockies.

-- Ashley Powers