Hello Fellow Birders, For the first time in my life I assisted with tagging and banding 2 TRUMPETER SWANS in the Port of Newcastle Harbor yesterday. I have some awesome photos of the whole event. I phoned Harry Lumsden first thing in the morning to inform him that I was able to feed 3 TRUMPETER SWANS practically out of my hand. He came down from Aurora very quickly. And it was amazing how soon he caught 2 of them and wrestled them to the ground. The one was an older male and the other was a yearling male. The older male had a broken tag so Harry replaced it with a new one as well as another band on his legs I got to keep the old one for souvenir. It was fascinating how he had a complete record of the older swan who was hatched in Aurora, transferred to Newmarket, became part of the migration program of being trained by a surrogate parent and led by an ultra light aircraft to Indiana, mated with a female who died, back up to Newmarket & later up north of Sudbury, etc. I cannot possibly give you the details and life story of this TRUMPETER SWAN here but it certainly has convinced me of the importance of calling Harry when you sight a tagged TRUMPETER SWAN in your area. Harry has promised to send me the life story of # 100. Perhaps with Mark Cranford's permission I can type it up for Ontbirds when I obtain it. CHEERS FOR THE TRUMPETER SWANS! Today everything was very quiet by Newcastle as well as along the Lake Shore Rd. to Wesleyville the east. Just before the Wesleyville Rd. were 75 WAXWINGS, Esther Allin & I estimated about 1/3 of them to be BOHEMIAN and 2/3 CEDAR WAXWINGS. On our return trip we counted approximately 125 BLACK BIRDS consisting primarily of RED WINGED BLACKBIRDS & EUROPEAN STARLINGS. At the feeders at home there were 16 COMMON REDPOLLS, 8 HOUSE FINCHES, 6 AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES, 8 BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEES, 4 WHITE BREASTED NUTHATCHES, 4 DOWNY & 2 HAIRY WOODPECKERS, 2 NORTHERN CARDINALS, 2 MOURNING DOVES. Directions: Take Mill St. S. exit off # 401 and drive along the lake towards Wesleyville, east of Newcastle/Bond Head. Markus J. Lise Newcastle, On "Markus J. Lise" <markusonmill@speedline.ca>