PHOTO OP-ED: Migrants rest on their journey north in a flooded Ozaukee farm field

The foreign visitors were tundra swans that sojourned last week on a cornfield pond made by melting snow and spring rains in the Town of Port Washington.

The big but graceful birds, snowy white cousins of the trumpeter swans that are also seen in Wisconsin, were likely bound for the Arctic, where they breed and live in summer.

Their calls, sometimes heard when the swans fly overhead with long necks and wide wingspans extended, are high-pitched and quavering.

Photos by Sam Arendt