At Seney National Wildlife Refuge, trumpeter swans that had all but vanished now raise their young on the quiet pools, and summer is the time to see them
Tucked into the eastern U.P., between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, sits a 95,000-acre refuge where you can drive a quiet loop and watch trumpeter swans, loons, and bald eagles raising their young, all from your car. It is called Seney, and it is one of the best wildlife spots in Michigan.
The real showstoppers are the trumpeter swans. These are the largest native waterfowl in North America, big, graceful, snow-white birds with a wingspan that can top seven feet. And not that long ago, you could not have seen one here at all.
By the early 1900s, after decades of overhunting for their feathers and skins, trumpeter swans had all but vanished from Michigan and most of the country. They were pushed right to the brink. Then, in the late 1980s, biologists reintroduced them at Seney. The birds took to the refuge’s quiet pools, started nesting, and thrived. Today their descendants glide across the water every summer, often trailed by a line of fuzzy gray cygnets.
Seney itself has a surprising backstory. The land was once part of a vast swamp that early settlers tried and failed to drain and farm. In the 1930s, federal work crews reshaped it into a network of pools meant to attract ducks. The ducks never quite showed up in the numbers they hoped for, but nature had other plans. What people wrote off as a failure became one of the richest wildlife havens in the region.
These days the refuge is a birdwatcher’s dream, with more than 200 species of birds recorded, along with loons calling across the pools, ospreys diving, eagles perched in the pines, and sandhill cranes stalking the grass. Keep your eyes open on the edges and you might also spot a deer, a beaver, a fox, or even, if you are very lucky, a moose or a wolf.
The easiest way to take it all in is the Marshland Wildlife Drive, a seven-mile auto loop that winds past the pools where the swans and loons hang out. You can do the whole thing from your car, which makes it perfect for families, grandparents, or anyone who would rather watch wildlife than hike for it. The visitor center, the drive, and the trails are open from mid-May through October, so right now is prime time. And like all national wildlife refuges, it is free.
So if you are looking for a slow, peaceful U.P. afternoon, point the car toward Germfask and roll the windows down. Somewhere out on those quiet pools, a pair of giant white swans that should not even be here anymore will be gliding by with their babies in tow, living proof that sometimes, given a little help and a lot of space, the wild comes back.
Sources: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Michigan Technological University.
Featured image: Photo by Julie Christiansen / Seney Natural History Association, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped for layout
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