Trumpeter swan which is apparent even when the swan is not standing or swimming upright) and larger, wedge-shaped bill as compared to the tundra swan. Trumpeter swans have similar calls to whooper swans and Bewick's swans. They are loud and somewhat musical creatures, with their cry sounding similar to a trumpet, which gave the bird its name. Beginning in 1968, repeated in 1975, and then conducted at 5-year intervals, a cooperative pan-continental survey of trumpeter swans was last conducted in 2015. The survey assesses trumpeter swan abundance and productivity throughout the entire breeding ranges of the three recognized North American populations: the
Trumpeter (bird) ground. Trumpeters nest in a hole in a tree or in the crown of a palm tree. They lay 2 to 5 eggs with rough, white shells, averaging about . In the pale-winged trumpeter and the grey-winged trumpeter, groups of adults care for a single clutch. Trumpeters are often used as "guard dogs" because they call loudly when alarmed, become tame easily, and are believed to be adept at killing snakes. One source states their skill at hunting snakes as a fact, and the nineteenth-century botanist Richard Spruce gave an account of the friendliness and snake-killing prowess of a tame