The whooper swan, like its onomatopoeic cousins, the whistling and the trumpeter ... glide on the mirror of a lake and lovely, unfurling flight, signaled evanescence and evoked immortal longings.

the mute swan and the tundra swan (sometimes known as the whistling swan). Trumpeter swans almost went extinct during the early 1900s—fewer than 100 were in the Lower 48 at one point.