How apropos that we should be visited by a black swan in 2020 : ) Black swans are native to Australia, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how this one wound up in a forest preserve lake here in northern Illinois, but there it was with a family of mute swans – a gathering of the non-natives. Maybe it fled from a breeder, or from a pond that was stocked with black swans (there was a pond in Freeport, IL a few years ago that was stocked with black swans). Still, it was a great experience and we appreciate its beauty, and we wish it and the mutes well on their migration, wherever they may be going.