Friends of Swan Lake

05/30/2026

World Turtle Day reference card. Five eastern species. How to identify. How to help. When to call.

PAINTED TURTLE — Smooth, flat shell. Red and yellow markings on head and neck. Yellow stripes. Basking on logs. Cross roads May-June for nesting. Move across road in direction of travel if safe. 🌿

SNAPPING TURTLE — Large, rough shell. Spiked tail. Aggressive on land (can't retract into shell). DO NOT pick up by tail (damages spine). Slide flat object underneath or grip shell behind rear legs. Always move in direction of travel.

EASTERN BOX TURTLE — High-domed shell with yellow/orange blotches. Hinged plastron — can seal completely. Terrestrial. DO NOT put in water (they can drown in deep water). DO NOT relocate — they spend entire lives in a home range of roughly 250 yards.

RED-EARED SLIDER — Red or orange stripe behind each eye. Invasive pet release. If found in a park pond, the population is established. DO NOT release pet turtles into the wild.

WOOD TURTLE — Orange on neck and legs. Rough, sculpted shell plates. Rare. State-listed in nearly every state. If found crossing a road, help it across and report the sighting to your state wildlife agency.

🐾 Universal protocol:

- Always move a turtle in the direction it was heading
- Never relocate to a "better" spot — the turtle will try to return
- Injured turtle with a cracked shell → contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator (turtles can survive shell injuries with veterinary care)
- A turtle digging a hole in your lawn = nesting female. Leave the site undisturbed.

05/29/2026

Set aside time 4pm - 10:30pm — June 13th, 2026 Friends of the Swan Lake NWR will have a corner booth set up in Sumner Missouri near Maxie in the park from 4pm-7pm … we will have information for the Roy Blunt lake down stream valley flooding mitigation plan that is pertinent to the area… also we will have a (hands on) wildlife display table with furs, antlers, shells & such to peak the interest of all ages… and the best for last, we will have a free children’s water duck decoy game where EVERY child is a winner! Please stop in… more to follow as the Sumner Community Park & The American Legion post 586 hash out the details of the MAJOR event unfolding in the park around us on Flag Day… we are so happy they let us have a spot to connect with YOU … see you there 06/13/2026 (4pm-10:30pm)

05/29/2026

Hello Folks, it has been said that the Swan Lake Refuge headquarters building construction will begin in the spring of 2027 & the construction will last up to 3 years with a grand opening (hopefully) in the spring of 2030 …

05/03/2026

I'm a Canada goose. The large kind — the one that lives in your office park year-round and never migrates.

A hundred years ago, the large resident subspecies was considered gone. Market hunting and egg collection had wiped out the non-migratory populations. Smaller migratory subspecies survived in the north, but the big resident birds of the plains had vanished.

Then a surviving flock was identified in the 1960s. Wildlife agencies captured breeding pairs and released them across the country to rebuild goose populations. What they released was a bird that doesn't migrate — into a landscape designed to support it permanently.

Golf courses, corporate campuses, retention ponds, cemetery lawns, suburban parks — all of it is ideal. Short mowed grass is my preferred food. Open water within walking distance is my security. Few predators threaten my goslings in suburban settings. I mate for life, return to the same nesting site each year, and teach my young the same route.

I'm not passing through. I was born near that pond and I'll stay near it.

🪿 If resident geese are settling on your property:

- Let grass grow tall along water edges — geese prefer short turf with clear sightlines to open water. A band of taller vegetation around a pond discourages nesting
- Don't feed them bread or anything else — a fed flock grows quickly and loses wariness of people
- Nesting pairs defend territory from March through June — a goose with a lowered head and hissing is giving a serious warning. Walk a wide path around them
- If population is a concern, contact your local wildlife agency about permitted egg management — it's the most effective long-term approach, since removing adults just opens the territory for a new pair

I'm what happens when a bird that doesn't migrate gets released into a continent of mowed lawns and retention ponds 🌿

05/02/2026

High and dry! This goose beat the rising waters from recent rains with this nest in a dead tree on Truman Lake down at the Berry Bend Access in Warsaw. mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/canada-goose 📷 Caitlin Morgan

05/01/2026

From the national wildlife refuge association to our very own Friends of the swan lake national wildlife refuge president Mike Moore reads as follows —

Dear Mike,

Thank you! Because of your support, 87 Friends groups and partner organizations signed on to the Refuge Association’s FY2027 House testimony calling for stronger funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Together, we urged Congress to provide $761 million for the Refuge System’s Operations and Maintenance account, restoring funding to the FY2010 level adjusted for inflation. This funding is urgently needed to help refuges address severe staffing shortages, care for wildlife and habitat, maintain visitor services, support public access, and meet growing conservation needs.

You can read the submitted House testimony here >>

We are now preparing the Senate version of this testimony.
If your organization signed on to the House testimony, you do not need to sign on again. We will automatically include your organization on the Senate version unless you ask us to remove it.

Please review the Senate version and signer list to confirm your organization is included and listed correctly >>
Sign-On to the Senate Testimony by Thursday, May 14th at 5 pm ET >>
Please let us know by Thursday, May 14th at 5 pm ET if your organization would prefer not to be included on the Senate version, if your organization’s name or state needs to be updated, or if your Friends group did not sign on to the House testimony but would like to be added. **This sign-on letter is for Friends groups and partner organizations, not individuals, please stay tuned next week for a advocacy alert for individual supporters.**

If your Friends group would also like to submit your own testimony, you can find instructions from the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee here >>

Your voice matters. When Refuge Friends speak together, Congress hears directly from the local communities, volunteers, and partners who stand with national wildlife refuges every day.

Thank you for all you do for national wildlife refuges,

Desirée Sorenson-Groves
President & CEO
National Wildlife Refuge Association

04/27/2026

Our local school nearby needs your attention please

Request for bids for “building tin replacement” OR “power washing & painting” of ag building and concession stand.

PLEASE SHARE - WE RECEIVED NO BIDS LAST MONTH.

03/18/2026

The Canada Goose on the retention pond at your office park isn't resting. She's on day twelve of a twenty-eight-day incubation. She has not left the nest to eat since she started sitting.

She pulled down feathers from her own breast to line the nest — creating a bare patch of skin called a brood patch that sits directly against the eggs at one hundred and one degrees. The down she removed is insulating the eggs from below. Her body warms them from above. She turns them with her bill every thirty to sixty minutes.

She'll lose roughly twenty-five percent of her body weight before the eggs hatch. She entered incubation at about ten pounds. She'll be closer to seven and a half when the goslings emerge. She survives on stored fat and the water she can reach by stretching her neck from the nest.

The male — the gander — stands guard within twenty feet at all times. He doesn't incubate. He doesn't build. He defends. He'll charge a dog, a person, a fox, a crow, anything that approaches within thirty feet of the nest. He hisses. He spreads his wings to a span of five and a half feet. He has bony k***s on his wrist joints that deliver strikes hard enough to bruise.

The nest is on the ground near water — a mound of dead vegetation, grass, and cattail stems up to two feet across, lined entirely with her own breast down. She chose the site in February. She'll use it again next year.

Six eggs. Twenty-eight days. No food. One guard.

🐾 If there's a goose nest near you:

- Give her thirty feet of space — the gander's defense perimeter. Inside that range, he charges
- She'll hiss but she won't leave the eggs. The hissing means you're too close
- The goslings walk within twenty-four hours of hatching. The family leaves the nest site within two days

She's been sitting for twelve days. She has sixteen left. She won't move. 🌿

03/16/2026

The E blind access sustained a little damage during the last rainfall with brush coming down Elk creek pushing the tubes downstream a bit

03/15/2026

We toured throughout the refuge prior to the snow today … Mother Nature is all over the place lately 🙂 it would be nice if we were using a better camera than just our phones 📱 but hopefully y’all enjoy them just the same … there are a pair of Sandhill cranes camped out in the pasture just north of the South Pool