ML627383209

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1

Media notes

Juvenile Tundra Swan, present since initially found on 29 November 2024 by Nick Lethaby, here photographed by Curtis A. Marantz on 3 December 2024 on Laguna Blanca, Hope Ranch, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California.

Observation details

It did not take me long to locate the large white bird swimming in the middle of the lake when I began scanning from the south side of the lake with the sun behind me. Ovee the next 20 minutes I studied this bird intermittently ad took some photos while also checking the other birds. This bird was never overly close, with my observations made from a distance of about 200 meters given that the bird was essentially in the middle of the lake, though a bit on the west side, and that it never moved all that far. The swan was foraging most of the time by submerging its head and neck fully, but I never saw it tip the rear end upward as these birds often do in deeper water. I also never saw it preening, spreading its wings, or in flight, and I never heard it vocalize. In short, it swam around calmly foraging from the surface, often with other waterfowl in close proximity. Thus was a conspicuously large waterbird, yet it did not seem huge relative to the other birds as I may have expected from a Trumpeter Swan. Typical of a swan, it had a large, wedge-shaped or “shoe-like” bill that tapered from a conspicuously deep base to a tip that was pointed, but not sharply so, along a culmen that I thought was rather straight. The bill was approximately twice as long as it was deep at the base and that the line of the culmen essentially matched that of the forehead as it extended upward to a weak peak that was above and a bit behind the eye, all on a head that was small for the bird’s size. I also noted that the bill was almost as long as the head was wide, though maybe ever so slightly shorter, and that the rear part of the crown curved downward to the nape and then smore steeply down the back of the neck. The neck was notably long and slim, and it did seem to have an odd “kink” in it in addition to the usual angle forward where it met the body. The body was conspicuously plump, with the back having an almost hunched appearance given the closed wings, and sitting rather high on the water. I was able to see that the wingtips reached right about to the tips of the uppertail coverts, but I could not make out the primary projection. The tail was about a third the length of the body without the head and neck, and it appeared to be rather narrowly rounded and cocked only slightly upward relative to the waterline. I never saw the spread wings, or the belly, and I was able to see only the uppermost portion of one leg while the bird paddled at the surface. This bird was a dingy white almost throughout. I further noted that the face, and most of the head, were uniformly light gray in color, but the gray appeared more like clouding on the neck, upperparts, closed wings, and the breast, sides, and flanks. The overall appearance was more extensively white than I would associate with a young Trumpeter Swan in early December, but nowhere did this bird appear to be purely white, though I never saw the wings particularly well. Moreover, apart from the gray clouding, I never saw any actual markings on this bird, apart from what may have been a narrow line of darker coloration through the lores. The bill was a mostly rather bright shade of pink, at least across the upper mandible, but I did notice a rather narrow band of black extending they length of the base of the bill form the top at least to the gape, that the gape was narrowly framed with black, and that the tip of the bill was also narrowly black, but all of these black markings were quite limited, and the nares stood out among the pink portion of the upper mandible. I was unsure about the color of the lower mandible, but I did think there was at least a limited amount of pink below the narrow line of black along the gape. The eyes appeared to be dark, but I was unsure about their precise color even though it was clear that the eye was located outside of any bare skin on the face, which appeared to be limited to a narrow line between it and the base of the upper mandible. As far as I could determine from a distance, the junction of the black base of the bill with the white feathering of the face appeared to extend vertically from top to bottom without the angular junction that is typical of adult birds on which the loral skin is more extensive before the eye. The uppermost portion of the leg that I saw was black, bit I never saw the lower part of the legs much less the feet on a bird that I observed exclusively as it swam at the surface.

Technical information

Model

ILCE-7RM5

Lens

FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS

ISO

160

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

1436 pixels x 930 pixels

Original file size

1.66 MB