Bewick's Swan - Maria Slough

[Gord]

Murray passed along a few photos of a swan Gary took this morning. I would say it is a Bewick's Swan going on the amount of yellow on the bill that appears to start to cross the top part of the bill. This seems to be the feature that sets it apart from our Tundra Swans. Mind you, even the rare individuals that display more than normal yellow never have this much as far as I've seen.

Bewick's Swans are the Eurasian version of our Tundra (Whistling) Swans and are not a separate species.

Good work, Gary!

[Gord]

After looking at more photos and from Murray's field observations we figure it is a Tundra Swan with about as much yellow that the sub-species ever gets. Another thing we noted is how the bird in question was hanging out with another Tundra Swan adult and a juvenile. Often these birds like to stick together as family units (often one can see two adults and sometimes as many as four-five juveniles together) so makes one think that if it was a stray from across the Pacific, it might not be behaving this way. By no means foolproof as interesting things happen in nature but it is worth consideration all the same. I was amused to be able to apply the 'oppsites attract' theory here too as the other adult Tundra Swan appears to have no yellow on the beak at all. A lack of yellow is also as rare as seeing one with so much yellow on it so what were the odds there?? Murray is right to wonder what the juvenile will look like when it develops the yellow (maybe) on the bill.

Some photos that were shared. Thanks to all for getting and sharing them.

Murrays





Gary's



Lynn's. The first one is the clincher as it shows that the yellow does not cross over the top of the bill which is necessary for it to be a Bewick's Swan.