Very odd black swan (1 Viewer)

Vinch · Nov 5, 2005

Found in a dutch website (http://www.corotauria.nl/afbeeldingen/foto.php?ned=Zwarte Zwaan&soort=Zwarte Zwaan), please look at here three pics of a swan (specified as black swan - Cygnus atratus in the website).

In my opinion, this black swan would be a mute-black swan hybrid, because of following characters: bill coloration, nostrils placement, feather structure, eye coloration, general morphology.

Your opinion?

robinho · Nov 5, 2005

I also belive this is an hybird.. mute x black swan was also my first impression.
http://home.no/clay-burn/Linkene til bildene/Svartsvane.htm

Her is an normal black swan (first for norway) The bill are a bit different

Sorry for my poor english again, Robin

Dimitris · Nov 5, 2005

Not a pure Black for sure.Too bulky and wrong coloured body,eyes,bill etc.

Mute would be my guess too so Black*Mute hybrid.

Cheers,

Dimi

EDIT:here's a pure Black Swan for comparison:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Nature/Birds/Swimmers/BlackSwan.jpg

J Jones · Nov 5, 2005

Mute X Black hybrid.

Vinch · Nov 5, 2005

Please find here two other exemples of black/mute swan hybrid... The mute swan involved might be a 'polish', because of the peculiar color of this hybrid.

Don't ask me the name of the website, I forgot to note it... Sorry!

Yernagates · Nov 5, 2005

Hi -

Vinch's second bird looks almost identical to one we saw last Christmas on the River Avon at Fordingbridge in Hampshire -- see pictures attached.

Our bird was seen on exactly the same spot that a black swan was seen associating with a mute in the previous May. Can't of course tell if these were the parents, but black swans are fairly frequent on the Avon, and mute are extremely plentiful summer and winter.

We saw the same or a very similar hybrid bird a mile or so downstream a few months later.

The first sighting posted on here at the time, but lost in the Great January Bird Forum Crash...

Richard

Vinch · Nov 6, 2005

Is this hybrid fertile?

Yernagates · Nov 6, 2005

Vinch said:
Is this hybrid fertile?

I forgot to ask it that...

Could well be, though. Inter-species barriers in birds are generally behavioural (or geographic) rather than physiological, and so back-crossing happens a lot. Don't know about swans though, especially as this is nowadays regarded as an intergeneric cross. Common amongst ducks, geese, finches, falcons, and pretty well anything else in captivity that gets the chance... It's the reason of course that the ruddy duck's such a threat to the white-headed.

I wonder about the first bird you posted. It's much less grey than your second and mine, so perhaps it could be the hybrid back-crossed to a black?

Alternatively it could be the opposite cross -- that might well look different, like mules and hinnies.

Or perhaps the greyer ones are juveniles.

Richard

Joern Lehmhus · Nov 7, 2005

Hi Vinch,definitely mute and black hybrid;:as for fertility I don´t know; but I would guess it is infertile...thtat´s just aguess of course,but Mute x trumpeter swan or mute x whooper swan are infertile as far as I know.

Joern Lehmhus · Nov 7, 2005

Hi Vinch, a question to the second pic in your second mail- this bird looks slightly strange for a mute x black swan due to the orange bill and the high rear end- therefore I am not fully sure if it is possible to rule out a domestic goose x black swan there? Unfortunately the photo isn´t clear enough on my monitor to give a definite answer to that (these features mentioned could also be due to the birds movement and due to the photo)- do you have more photos of that particular hybrid?

Black swan in captivity occasionally also hybridises with geese, attached is an article about a Black swan x Canada goose hybrid (Maybe you know that article already?)

Vinch · Nov 7, 2005

Surely!

In my second mail, I thought that the involved mute parent would be a
'polish morph' ('leucistic' mute swan, with lighter legs, knob, and white coloration of "swanlings") , because of speckled coloration, orange bill...

Joern Lehmhus · Nov 8, 2005

Definitely Black x Mute then also for that one after the new photos...
but I doubt you can savely say the mute swan was the so called "Polish" morph, because hybrids are that much variable (Just think of hybrids Barnacle x barheaded goose and the variability in the distribution of white on their necks, for example).

Jörn

Very odd black swan (1 Viewer)

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