Not much is known about the migration of Western tundra swans, the majestic white birds that stop along the Great Salt Lake each spring and autumn on their trips between California and Alaska.
But now, because of the "Shadow-a-Swan" project spearheaded by two Bountiful, Utah, schools, biologists know this: The birds do not make a beeline for the marshy winter feeding grounds in California and Nevada nor a sweeping, linear flight to the breeding grounds of Alaska.
"There's quite a bit of start and stop and movement backward," said Tom Aldrich, waterfowl program coordinator for Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources.
Radio signals from the neck collar of one of the Shadow-a-Swan birds—dubbed James Swan 007 by the students—tracked him this spring from Nevada north to the Idaho-Oregon border, southeast to Utah's Bear River Bird Refuge and north again into southeast Idaho.
"Flying is an energetically demanding activity, so you'd assume it would make them move in straighter lines. I've found that fascinating," said Aldrich, who supervised the collaring of the birds and answers students' questions on the Web site Shadow-a-Swan.
It all started last year when three educators—Allison Riddle, fifth-grade teacher at Bountiful's Meadowbrook Elementary; Dwight Brown, Bountiful High science teacher; and Brandon Thacker, instructional specialist in the Davis School District's technology center—dreamed up a project that attracted U.S. $30,000 from corporate foundation grants.
The idea was to fit swans with radios that would send a signal to a satellite. The data then would be converted into latitude and longitude and provided to Thacker, who posts the swans' location and manages the Shadow-a-Swan Internet site.
70 Schools Have Participated
Students in 70 schools from as far away as Maryland have participated, Thacker said. Many of the classes make predictions about where the swans will go next and how far they will fly. High-schoolers also research the habitat along the swans' paths.
The first two swans were collared in the spring of 2000, but they promptly pecked off the radio antennas.
Last November, 20 fifth-graders and high school students went to the Bear River Bird Refuge in Box Elder County to help collar eight swans. Each was captured by using a helicopter and a gun that shoots a net over the bird.
