Park Rapids is home to a winter flock of trumpeter swans. These birds are huge, standing 4 foot tall with wing spans of 8 feet. The river flowing out of Fish Hook Lake is usually ice free, and these birds seem quite content to hang out all winter. A few people bring shelled corn, which I assume helps augment their limited food supply this time of year. I stopped by last week to see how many where still here. The first stop was a nice day and all the swans evidently were out feeding in the now open fields and other recently opened rivers. I stopped again a few days later; the weather had turned cold again, with more snow, and this time there were a couple dozen swans in the river. Here are a couple quick shots of our winter flock of swans.
