Call it the Cougar Bay swan song.

Fowl friends have spotted migratory tundra swans and they're lovin' it.

“This whole week they’ve been here and there’s a lot,” said Christine Fritz, a resident of Cougar Bay. “Usually the geese outnumber them, but they’re almost matched this year.”

Fritz said she sees the swans visit yearly for a week or two, but this year features the most swans she’s seen.

At least a couple hundred swans have settled near her property close to the Cougar Bay Preserve, she estimated.

David Leptich, regional wildlife habitat biologist and manager of the Coeur d’Alene Wildlife Management Area and the Farragut Wildlife Management Area, said most of the birds are tundra swans. The exception would be trumpeter swans, but they're less common to the area.

The swans visit annually, usually showing up in early to mid-February. Leptich said the numbers usually peak the second and third weekend in March and by the middle of April the birds have mostly moved on.

Leptich said the birds visit during their spring migration, and winter mostly in the central valley of California. The swans breed primarily on the west coast of Alaska.

Leptich said that when the swans arrive at the breeding ground, a lot of the habitat is still frozen. Females will lay a clutch of three to five eggs and the energy and protein that goes into the eggs comes from the mother's body.

He said North Idaho provides an important stopover for the birds to rest and eat on their way to Alaska.

“It’s important that they have areas like this to stop over and feed on their way north because they need those fuel reserves to be able to lay those eggs,” he said.

Nationally, two populations of tundra swans are monitored, the eastern and western population, each about 100,000 birds.

Tundra swans are the most common species native to North America. Their bodies are smaller than the less common trumpeter swan, which has a population of about 16,000 swans nationwide.

For those interested in watching the little visitors, Leptich said the majority of the birds can be found in the lower Coeur d’Alene River Basin, between Rose Lake and Harrison.

“They’re one of the reasons that we live in a place like North Idaho,” Leptich said. “People who live there love the outdoors and love nature, and people go out there, photograph them and just enjoy their presence.”

Leptich said Lane Marsh, a wetland along Highway 3, is a great place to see large numbers of waterfowl including the swans, and there's some public parking.

He said it’s important to not feed the birds or to approach them too closely.

“Anytime we disturb birds and they’re having to kind of escape you or move away from you, you’re causing them to expend energy that they shouldn’t otherwise have to,” Leptich said. “It’s really important to be able to arrive on the breeding grounds with the reserves they need to lay their eggs and so forth.”

Leptich recommended bringing binoculars and observing the swans from at least 100 yards away.

For some locals like Fritz, swan watching can be enjoyed right from their backyard.

Fritz said it’s important that areas like the 88-acre Cougar Bay Preserve remain open spaces for migrating fowl to be able to rest and eat.

“They’re pretty,” Fritz said. “It’s amazing how they can just sit in one spot for so long and eat.”