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Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan

The Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus), called Sångsvan in Skåne, pronounced hooper swan, is a large Northern Hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genus Cygnus. Francis Willughby and John Ray's Ornithology of 1676 referred to this swan as "the Elk, Hooper, or wild Swan". The scientific name is from cygnus, the Latin for "swan".

Distribution and behaviour
Whooper swans require large areas of water to live in, especially when they are still growing, because their body weight cannot be supported by their legs for extended periods of time. The whooper swan spends much of its time swimming, straining the water for food, or eating plants that grow on the bottom.

Whooper swans have a deep honking call and, despite their size, are powerful fliers. Whooper swans can migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles to their wintering sites in southern Europe and eastern Asia. They breed in subarctic Eurasia, further south than Bewicks in the taiga zone.

They are rare breeders in northern Scotland, particularly in Orkney, and no more than five pairs have bred there in recent years; a handful of pairs have also bred in Ireland in recent years. This bird is an occasional vagrant to the Indian Subcontinent and western North America.

Icelandic breeders overwinter in the United Kingdom and Ireland, especially in the wildfowl nature reserves of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Whooper swans pair for life, and their cygnets stay with them all winter; they are sometimes joined by offspring from previous years. Their preferred breeding habitat is wetland, but semi-domesticated birds will build a nest anywhere close to water.

Both the male and female help build the nest, and the male will stand guard over the nest while the female incubates. The female will usually lay 4–7 eggs (exceptionally 12). The cygnets hatch after about 36 days and have a grey or brown plumage. The cygnets can fly at an age of 120 to 150 days.

New born babies at Söderåsens National Park - May 2019


Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan baby
Söderåsens National Park - May 2019


When whooper swans prepare to go on a flight as a flock, they use a variety of signaling movements to communicate with each other. These movements include head bobs, head shakes, and wing flaps and influence whether the flock will take flight and if so, which individual will take the lead.

Whooper swans that signaled with these movements in large groups were found to be able to convince their flock to follow them 61% of the time. In comparison, swans that did not signal were only able to create a following 35% of the time.

In most cases, the whooper swan in the flock that makes the most movements (head bobs) is also the swan that initiates the flight of the flock – this initiator swan can be either male or female, but is more likely to be a parent than a cygnet.

Additionally, this signaling method may be a way for paired mates to stay together in flight. Observational evidence indicates that a swan whose mate is paying attention to and participates in its partner's signals will be more likely to follow through with the flight. Thus, if a whooper swan begins initiating flight signals, it will be less likely to actually carry through with the flight if its mate is not paying attention and is therefore less likely to join it.

They are very noisy; the calls are strident, similar to those of Bewick's swan but more resonant and lower-pitched on average: kloo-kloo-kloo in groups of three or four.

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Range map from www.oiseaux.net
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there


Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Range of C. cygnus - Click HERE for full size map
By Jniemenmaa 17:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC) - Global Register of Migratory Species for data, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3108539


Description
The whooper swan is similar in appearance to the Bewick's swan. It is larger, however, at a length of 140–165 cm and a wingspan of 205–275 cm. Weight typically is in the range of 7.4–14 kg, with an average of 9.8–11.4 kg for males and 8.2–9.2 kg for females.

Length: 165 cm
Wingspan: 205 - 243 cm
Weight: 8000 - 11000 g
Longevity: 8 Years
Distinctive Feature
• Crested
Similar Species
• Mute Swan has a red bill, a longer, acutely pointed tail, and usually a more curved neck; juvenile Mutes also differ in darker brown admixed with some white feathers by winter. In Bewick's Swan the yellow on the beak has a rounded apex. Trumpeter Swan lacks the yellow on the bill, but is otherwise very similar, though the two species do not normally overlap in the wild.

From opus at www.birdforum.net the forum for wild birds and birding.


The verified record mass was 15.5 kg for a wintering male from Denmark. It is considered to be amongst the heaviest flying birds. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 56.2–63.5 cm, the tarsus is 10.4–13 cm and the bill is 9.2–11.6 cm.

It has a more angular head shape and a more variable bill pattern that always shows more yellow than black (Bewick's swans have more black than yellow). Like their close relatives, whooper swans are vocal birds with a call similar to the trumpeter swan.

Listen to the Whooper Swan

Remarks from the Recordist

Recorded with my ZOOM H5 Handy recorder. High pass filter applied with Audacity

A pair of Whopper Swans in Svartån (Black River) at Sågdammen, Skultuna

They were calling non-stop looking like dogs while barking and swimming along the river.

see video below.






Remarks from the Recordist

I had forgotten my ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder so recorded with my mobil phone

Whooper Swans flying over the bird hide


www.xeno-canto.org


Sågdammen, Skultuna, Sweden - April 2019


Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Cygnus cygnus – MHNT
By Roger Culos - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71923442


Influence
Whooper swans are much admired in Europe. The whooper swan is the national bird of Finland and is featured on the Finnish 1 euro coin. The whooper swan is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

Musical utterances by whooper swans at the moment of death have been suggested as the origin of the swan song legend. The global spread of H5N1 reached the UK in April 2006 in the form of a dead whooper swan found in Scotland.

Conservation status
Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net


Sighted: 16 April 2019
Location: Trandansen, Lake Hornborga /Hornborgasjön


Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 16 April 2019 - Trandansen, Lake Hornborga /Hornborgasjön

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 16 April 2019 - Trandansen, Lake Hornborga /Hornborgasjön

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 16 April 2019 - Trandansen, Lake Hornborga /Hornborgasjön

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 30 April 2019 - Sågdammen, Skultuna

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 30 April 2019 - Sågdammen, Skultuna

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Male Whooper Swan with blue ring 9P30



Ringmärkningscentralen

The Whooper swan turned out to be a real nice fella. He came up on the beach to come to say hello. I spotted 2 rings around the legs and I managed to get a picture of the blue ring. Number 9P30 and I sent the picture to Ringmärkningscentralen.

If you find a ringed bird or ring you can report it online HERE or send the number to bird.ringing@nrm.se

Their web page is in swedish only, https://www.nrm.se/rc But if you understand Swedish there are some interesting information.

Anyway, took a long time to get the answer, but ring 9P30 is a male. Ringed first time 27 March 2016.

The other metal ring has number X8702. The bird was ringed together with X8700. And 22 April 2018 X8700 and X8702 was reported as a couple with 2 babies from 2017

X8700, blue ring 9P29 was also reported by me at the same time as the 9P30.




Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Male Whooper Swan with blue ring #9P30

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Male Whooper Swan with blue ring #9P30

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Male Whooper Swan with blue ring #9P30

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Female Whooper Swan with blue ring 9P29

Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus, Sångsvan
Whooper Swan / Sångsvan - 22 May 2019 - Söderåsens National Park
Female Whooper Swan with blue ring 9P29




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PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook




       
                  



                                       

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