And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 2, 2025, the twenty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of spring, the first Wednesday of April, and the ninety-second day of the year, with two-hundred seventy-three days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for April 2, 2025 April Immigrants The trumpeter swans ( Cygnus buccinator ) have returned! Wannaska-area waters remain iced in, but it's worth the trip down the road to Gully, where hundreds of bevies and gaggles (collective nouns) of trumpeter swans and Canada geese fill the peat bog waters. Males trumpeter swans average over twenty-six pounds, making them North America’s heaviest flying bird. To get that much mass aloft the swans need at least a 100 meter-long runway of open water, running hard across the surface like galloping horses as they generate speed for take off. The Gully-road peat bogs are just long enough for these impressive take-offs. Trumpeter swans feed while swimming, sometimes...