Jason E. Andersen

Bonus fun fact: I attended a release of trumpeter swans at Lake Anita this afternoon, so you get another trumpeter swan bonus fun fact. Did you know that young swans (under a year old) are called cygnets? This is a derivation of the greek word for swan, cygnus, which is also the swan genus (and also a recognizable summer constellation). Cygnets imprint on the area where they grow up, and are then very likely to repeatedly visit that area when they migrate back to their breeding grounds in the spring. The Iowa DNR released 8 trumpeter swan cygnets at Lake Anita, in an effort to bolster the species’ population in Iowa. Neat!