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AssetID: 36824965

Headline: Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) Winners

Caption: Trumpeter Swan Cygnus buccinator. Ontario, Canada. Photographer: Meera Sulaiman, Canada. Category: Garden and Urban Birds. SILVER AWARD WINNER. Photographer's Story: ‘This part of Lake Ontario is regarded as the biggest toxic coal-tar deposit in Canada, a by-product of more than 100 years of industrial waste. Its claim to fame is being the largest and most contaminated site on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. However, it is also a winter home for Trumpeter Swans. These North American natives are the largest of their kind in the world and one of the heaviest flying birds; weighing up to 30 pounds they are held aloft on a wingspan of eight feet. Around 200 swans gather here every winter. Trumpeter Swans once nested over most of North America and some estimates placed their numbers, historically, at more than 100,000. But by the 1880s they were almost hunted out of existence and were locally extinct in Ontario, Canada. The Trumpeter Swan’s reintroduction to Ontario has been a story in the making for more than 30 years. I started to document this wonderful species three years ago after being moved by their recovery story.’ Canon EOS 5D MkIII with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. 200mm focal length; 1/1,600 second; f/9; ISO 1,000.

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