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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Yesterday I had a experience on the waterside,a Mute Swan family (A couple and 4 cygnets) were feeding along the shore side and I made some pictures of them,suddenly I heard a lot of noise of a Swan flying in and landing in the area,the 2 swans started to interact together as shown in this capture,following I even thought they were mating as one was on top of the other and pushesd the other one even under the water line,at home after some investigation I found out that the thing I saw was probably that a swan defending his territory by attacking a challenger.
Swan Facts
► Swans are highly intelligent and remember who has been kind to them, or not.
► Behavior: Swans respond in kind to gentle and considerate treatment. They don’t arbitrarily attack people, and will only bite if they feel threatened. They are more aggressive during the nesting season because they need to protect their nest, eggs and babies. Nesting season usually starts in March and lasts a few months until the cygnets can launch out on their own.
► Mute swans have sharp vision and hearing.
► Sounds: Although they don’t have a “call” they have a remarkable assortment of sounds to convey a broad range of emotions, from a gentle ‘bleat’ through a range of puppy-like barking notes, and a head-to-tail long snort sometimes combined with head-raising and feathers fluffed, to register delight.
► How to recognize a male from a female: Male and female look alike, but if you look carefully, you can tell one from the other:
1- Males are larger than females;
2- The knob at the base of the male's upper bill is larger than the female's knob. By the way, it’s this knob that distinguishes the mute swan from all others;
3- The neck of a male is thicker than the neck of a female.
► Mates for life: Swans usually mate for life, remaining together through the year, but “divorces” have been known, and if one of a pair dies, the survivor usually seeks out a new mate, and the pair remain devoted. (see Precious)
► Mating: Swans begin to breed between 3 and 4 years of age. It’s a special treat to see swan mates “displaying” during the mating season, gracefully touching bill-to-bill and breast-to-breast until a perfect heart shape is formed, or gently intertwining their necks.
► Eggs: They lay from 5 to 10 eggs that take from 35 to 42 days to hatch. The female does most of the egg incubation, but every now and then the male will replace her for a while so she can have a swim and a ‘bite to eat’ in the lagoon.
► Cygnets are usually pale gray with gray legs that turn black as they grow, but there is a European sub-species or variant known as the Polish Mute, where the cygnets are white, with pink legs and feet. Our Mama Swan is the only one on Lost Lagoon. This coloring is due to a recessive gene.
► Food: Swans eat aquatic vegetation and insects, even tiny fish and tadpoles. Because they can plunge their long neck well below the water’s surface, they’re not in competition with ducks and smaller waterfowl for food. They actually help the smaller birds when parts of plants they’re eating float to the surface.
► Pinioning: Following Environment Canada's regulations, the swans of Lost Lagoon have been “pinioned” meaning their wing tendons have been clipped. This is done because the Mute Swan was an introduced species, and not native to British Columbia, Canada. Pinioning ensures that they won’t become feral and intermix with native species. They cannot fly away but can raise themselves above the water surface for speedier movement, or to protect their cygnets.
► Size and weight: Mute swans weigh from 6.5 – 13 kg (14 – 30 pounds), are about 160 cm (5 feet) long and can have a wingspan up to 2.5 meters (8 feet).
► A mute swan’s neck has 23 vertebrae, more than any other bird.
► A swan has some 25,000 feathers
► Lifetime: A swan in a protected environment might live as long as 30 years. For example, as at October 2005, our Boulika is about 25 years old.
► A male swan is called a "cob"
► A female swan is called a "pen"
► A baby swan is called a "cygnet"
► A group of cygnets or eggs is called a "clutch"
► A group of swans in the wild is called a “herd” while those in captivity are called a “fleet” |
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