ML559377501
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Behaviors
- Vocalizing
- Sounds
- Call
Observation details
A copy of my message to MDBirding: A few days ago Mikey Lutmerding played for me a voice recording he made of the 2 debated swans at Lake Artemesia. He thought they sounded good for Trumpeters and now felt better with identifying these swans as such. Inspired, I stopped by the lake this evening after work to see if I could hear them (they were silent on my first visit). This time I could hear the swans calling before I could even see them or the lake. They continued calling for the next 15 minutes as they swam back and forth along the shoreline only 10 ft away from me. Their calls certainly sounded low-pitched and nasal to me (see Nathan Pieplow's excellent summary here: http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/2411), and not at all like the higher pitched Tundra Swan. Really, they were spot on for Trumpeter. Some of the physical features of these birds had me going back and forth between Trumpeter and Trumpling the last few weeks, but none of the features ever seemed a deal breaker for Trumpeter. In fact, many of the features like the top of the bill, width of the loral skin, head peak, and feet size seem pretty good for Trumpeter. Given the new audio documentation, which is often cited as the best or most reliable field evidence one can get to aid in this challenge, I feel comfortable joining Mikey in calling these Trumpeter Swans. I video recorded the swans as they were calling and posted the video here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35144142@N04/12373606383/in/photostream/ The origin question is a different topic. Anyone who's visited the lake since my brother Tom's discovery of the swans on 7 Jan knows how tame these birds are. They readily approach bystanders, hoping for handouts. Today, the swans were lucky and got handfuls of Brim's chips (photograph here: ). But other than their tameness, I don't see any signs that these birds were once pets. As evidenced from my photographs and other people's observations, all of their halluces are intact. They are also fully capable of flight, which they demonstrated today with a full circuit around the northern section of the lake. The spate of Trumpeter and Trumpeter-like Swans in our region recently seems to add a little more credence to the wild origin of these birds. Additional photos:
Additional species
Technical information
- Camera
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 54.9 MB