Migration teaching new swans old tricks

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Grad student leads birds on adventure

BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Four trumpeter swans fly with Wayne Bezner Kerr as the ultralight pilot prepares to land at Reid Stewart Airport in Waynesville. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

WAYNESVILLE - At the grassy Reid Stewart Airfield, four trumpeter swans - with their distinctive namesake honks - are poised to complete an historic 730-mile flight from Canada to Seymour, Ind.

A century after the species was hunted almost to extinction, the trumpeters were guided to Warren County by Wayne Bezner Kerr and his brightly colored ultralight aircraft.

His aerial journey south will lead the swans to the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge — where no hunting is allowed.

Sunday's high head winds and poor visibility stymied the last leg of the flight. When conditions improve enough for Mr. Bezner Kerr to fly again, he will lead the swans to the nature preserve, halfway between Louisville and Indianapolis.

It will be the end of roughly a two-week trip.

To Mr. Bezner Kerr's undisguised delight, this first flight of the Ontario Trumpeter Swan Migration Project is accomplishing two goals:

The swans are being led from Ontario to Seymour, Ind., in hopes they'll return and teach others to migrate. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

• Showing the way to swans who can teach the migratory route to next year's trumpeters if the Muscatatuck Four fly home to Ontario next spring. (They won't be able to follow him home; his ultralight will be dismantled and swans won't follow the accompanying ultralight that will be flown back to Ontario.)

• Supporting his belief that cygnets hatched in the nest and reared by swans are likelier candidates for “induced migration” than those hatched in incubators and raised by people.

“Birds raised by their parents for 10 days initially don't follow,” Mr. Bezner Kerr said. “They are afraid of humans. However, by the end of the training period, they follow significantly better, they fly higher, they climb harder, they fly faster and they fly longer.”

Moreover, wilder birds have “much better prospects for long-term migration and survival.”

Mr. Bezner Kerr is a graduate student at Guelph University near Toronto. Those conclusions will be central to his master's thesis on the interplay of trumpeter nurture and migration.

However, if the swans do not return to Ontario, it will raise serious questions about the validity of trumpeter swan induced migration, regardless of how cygnets are raised, his wife, Rachel, said.

Once they're safely at Muscatatuck, it will be up to the swans. Three years of devotion to the animals have driven the Bezner Kerrs to the edge of bankruptcy.

“Our funding has run out,” he said. So have their credit card limits and the willingness of friends to serve as volunteers. “We have called in every favor imaginable.”

Unless someone comes up with $125,000, the Canadian couple's role is over and their two ultralights will be sold to cover debts.

It's no puzzle why trumpeter swans — with a honk akin to a French horn or possibly a truck air horn — were hunted aggressively. Three or four times larger than the Canada goose, one shot put more than 30 pounds of dinner on the table. And in the late 19th century, their plumes were a hot fashion item.

Bezner Kerr and his wife, Rachel, herd the swans to a pond during their stopover in Waynesville. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Surviving flocks in Alaska, northern Canada and the Rocky Mountains were used to restore trumpeters to Ontario.

Migration is vital if birds are to return to the wild. Geese have been trained to follow boats, cars and ultralights, but no one knew how best to teach swans to follow ultralights in the absence of elders to teach migration routes.

Pursuing that was Mr. Bezner Kerr's graduate project.

Of the 17 candidates hatched this year, one cob (the male) and three pens (females) showed the aptitude and stamina for the trip.

The four swans and two ultralights took off on Dec. 4, unsure where they would land on any day.

To accommodate that uncertainty, Rachel Bezner Kerr “cold called” owners of private, grass landing strips between North Monetville and Seymour.

Everyone welcomed them.

Swans were tireless, flying up to 150 miles a day and ready again after a night in a protective pen. The birds flew about 35 miles an hour and sometimes — in bursts over 55 mph — led Mr. Bezner Kerr's ultralight.

That wasn't the only evidence of their playful nature.

Swans changed formations, sometimes flying four on one side of the ultralight, or three and one, or two and two on both sides.

Sometimes, the powerful birds would jostle his ultralight, Mr. Bezner Kerr said, or land on his wings and “ride free.”

“Unnerving” as that was, his greatest fear was that a hitchhiker might get tangled in wires atop the wings.

“It wouldn't have been a good situation,” Rachel Bezner Kerr said; more likely to hurt the swan, it could be fatal to both.

Men and swans flew from 400 to 3,000 feet above the ground, stopping when head winds stymied them, weather became too rough for the ultralights or the pilots needed to take a break.

“The swans are very strong,” Rachel Bezner Kerr said, adding stops were largely to accommodate “human needs.”

In the air, Mr. Bezner Kerr concentrated on the birds. Other Ontario pilots — Mcrae Nussy, Bryan Quickmire, and now Ken Kennedy — followed in the second ultralight, radioing directions and helping track swans.

On the ground, Rachel Bezner Kerr and Anita Jane Fedoruk, a Guelph graduate who volunteered to see the project through after money ran out to pay her, followed in a borrowed motor home.

Rachel Bezner Kerr's master's degree dealt with manure and farming in Malawai, Central Africa. Still, she shares enough of her husband's interest in swans to have devoted herself to his thesis project.

“I wouldn't do it only because I'm married to him.”

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