I could be wrong, but I believe these are Tundra Swans, more specifically, Whistling Swans. Their bill is black, at least what we could capture in these photos. A little about the Tundra Swan:
The tundra swan (Cygnus columbianus) is a small Holarctic swan. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan (Cygnus bewickii) of the Palaearctic and the whistling swan (C. columbianus) proper of the Nearctic. Birds from eastern Russia (roughly east of the Taimyr Peninsula) are sometimes separated as the subspecies C. c. jankowskii, but this is not widely accepted as distinct, with most authors including them in C. c. bewickii. Tundra swans are sometimes separated in the subgenus Olor together with the other Arctic swan species. Wikipedia: Tundra Swan
These swans were not making much noise, but check this out:
Tundra swans have high-pitched honking calls and sound similar to a black goose (Branta). They are particularly vocal when foraging in flocks on their wintering grounds; any conspecific arriving or leaving will elicit a bout of loud excited calling from its fellows. Contrary to its common name, the ground calls of the whistling swan are not a whistle and neither notably different from that of Bewick's swan. The flight call of the latter is a low and soft ringing bark, bow-wow...; the whistling swan gives a markedly high-pitched trisyllabic bark like wow-wow-wow in flight. By contrast, the whooper and trumpeter swans' names accurately describe their calls—a deep hooting and a higher-pitched French horn-like honk, respectively. Flying birds of these species are shorter-necked and have a quicker wingbeat than their relatives, but they are often impossible to tell apart except by their calls.
Teresa took the bottom photo I took the top two. The were taken on three different days over a week. We drove by on Friday and they are still there. Who really wants to go back to the frozen tundra anyway?
~ Rick
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