OK, those were pretty easy to spot.

They were big and white and stood out brightly against the browns of the fields. There were maybe a dozen of them in the first bunch, closer to 20 in the second. They were trumpeter swans and I was so happy to see them.

My pal Mike — yeah, I know, same name — had told me a friend of his had seen a big bunch of swans just east of High River the day before. He had gone out for a look and seen that yes, there were swans out in the fields. So I figured I’d go have a look, too.

And like I said, they weren’t too hard to find.

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Trumpeter swans are pretty much the biggest flying birds in North America. They dwarf most other birds, even birds like Canada geese, let alone mallards and other ducks. The only birds that come close to their size are their cousins, tundra swans, and pelicans. Whooping cranes are pretty big, too, taller than trumpeters but they don’t weigh nearly as much.

If you are looking for signs of spring, the return of the swans is the first true one. They had left here late last fall and headed south toward the Gulf of Mexico or west toward the Pacific to spend the winter and they’ve been gone since then. Except for a few hardy swan families that spend the entire year on the Bow River both in the city and upstream near Exshaw, their return absolutely heralds a change in the season.

And those big white bodies make them very easy to see.

The ones I spotted first were in a pea field, mostly relaxing, some picking at the leftover roots. Mid-morning sun was shining on their bright feathers as well as the snowy peaks on the horizon behind them. Wind ruffled their feathers as I texted Mike to let him know I had found a few of them and then, after shooting a few pictures, kept heading eastward to see if I could find some more.

Trumpeter swans have close family connections so as I drove along I found individual groupings of moms, dads and last year’s cygnets in the fields. The young ones still hadn’t fully shed their grey baby feathers but they were easily as big as their parents. A little........

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