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Trumpeter Swan? Northern California (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter JonLivesay
- Start date
atricapillus
Well-known member
________________________JonLivesay said:
Well, it looks bigger than the Tundra behind it, and it has the straight look to the culmen (not dished as in the Tundra).
There also appears to be a pretty big swan body behind the Tundra, that could also be a Trumpeter. Trumpeters tend to be about 1-1/2 times wider than Tundras.
CHEERS, JOE G
Chris Benesh
So much work, so little time...so let's go birding
Hi All,
Jon, are there more shots of this bird? Not to be contrarian, but I would not be convinced of a Trumpeter Swan based solely on this one image. I find swans to be extremely tricky to identify much of the time, and it is generally good to have a series of images to look at. For example, if you look at the three swans centered in your picture, you have the clear Tundra on the left, your mystery bird on the right. But check out the one in the back. Its apparent size and structure is like the mystery bird to my eyes. Yet it looks to me as though there is a tiny bit of yellow present in the lore even though most of the bill is being plunged into the water. This suggests that it is a Tundra too. So what does that make the mystery bird? I know when I look at lots of wintering Tundra Swans, I can find birds that look like this in lacking yellow loral spots and having seemingly straightish culmens. Some of the other bill features (isolation of eye and gape curvature) are either equvocal or suggestive of Tundra to me. But boy, I do find these hard sometimes. I love the knock-you-over-the-head Trumpeters that have a really substantially long bill examples. This one doesn't hit me that way.
Chris
Jon, are there more shots of this bird? Not to be contrarian, but I would not be convinced of a Trumpeter Swan based solely on this one image. I find swans to be extremely tricky to identify much of the time, and it is generally good to have a series of images to look at. For example, if you look at the three swans centered in your picture, you have the clear Tundra on the left, your mystery bird on the right. But check out the one in the back. Its apparent size and structure is like the mystery bird to my eyes. Yet it looks to me as though there is a tiny bit of yellow present in the lore even though most of the bill is being plunged into the water. This suggests that it is a Tundra too. So what does that make the mystery bird? I know when I look at lots of wintering Tundra Swans, I can find birds that look like this in lacking yellow loral spots and having seemingly straightish culmens. Some of the other bill features (isolation of eye and gape curvature) are either equvocal or suggestive of Tundra to me. But boy, I do find these hard sometimes. I love the knock-you-over-the-head Trumpeters that have a really substantially long bill examples. This one doesn't hit me that way.
Chris
chubri777
Well-known member
I'd say it looks OK for Trumpeter but before I'd go and add it to my list I'd also check out as many swan ID pages on the net as I could...like this one with a few tundras that look like your bird
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/SwanID.htm
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/SwanID.htm
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