Bewick's Swan - Cambs,UK - Is it? (1 Viewer)

Thanks everyone. Looks like as we get older, and,supposedly, more experienced, we get a bit clouded and try to look too deep. When I was a lad, and used to spend days and days in the winter just watching the swans, I could tell a Bewick's a mile off, even without bins, just by it's look and shape. Bewick's and Whoopers, seemed to me, back then, as different as chalk and cheese. Nowadays', I look over the bird several times, and then still can't make my mind up!
Having said that, when you see them both on the ground together, they are easy to tell. It's when they are up in the sky, on their own, that it gets more difficult.

It's a Bewick. There is much less yellow on bill. Whooper yellow projects to below nostril.

pauco said:

It's a Bewick. There is much less yellow on bill. Whooper yellow projects to below nostril.

Click to expand...

The picture above? read previoous comments about foreshortening in the photo and check again, the yellow passes below the nostril. Whooper

Double Whooper ;-)

Not allways good to crop a picture. Crop can make a species more difficult to identify as in this case.

No offence!

Just showed the original picture to wife and daughter - both immediately called Whooper. That was my first thought too. I don't think there's anyway, even with foreshortening, that the yellow would show the rounded,concave form of a Bewick.

cheers
Gordon