Whooper Swan

The whooper swan (/ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/ "hooper swan"; Cygnus cygnus), also known as the common swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan.

Taxonomy: Francis Willughby and John Ray´s Ornithology of 1676 referred to this swan as "the Elk, Hooper, or wild Swan". It was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Anas cygnus. The species name is from cygnus, the Latin for "swan", and the type species for the genus Cygnus. This swan is monotypic with no subspecies.

 The whooper swan is similar in appearance to Bewick´s swan. It is larger, however, at a length of and a wingspan of . The weight is typically in the range of , with an average of for males and for females. The verified record mass was for a wintering male from Denmark. It is considered to be amongst the heaviest flying birds. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the tarsus is and the bill is . It has a more angular head shape and a more variable bill pattern that always shows more yellow than black (Bewick´s swans have more black than yellow). Like their close relatives, whooper swans are vocal birds with a call similar to the trumpeter swan.

Distribution and habitat: Whooper swans require large areas of water to live in, especially when they are still growing because their body weight cannot be supported by their legs for extended periods. The whooper swan spends much of its time swimming, straining the water for food, or eating plants that grow on the bottom.

Whooper swans have a deep honking call that resembles geese and, despite their size, are powerful fliers. Whooper swans can migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles to their wintering sites in southern Europe and eastern Asia. They breed in the subarctic Eurosiberia, further south than Bewicks in the taiga zone. They are rare breeders in northern Scotland, particularly in Orkney, and no more than five pairs have bred there in recent years; a handful of pairs have also bred in Ireland in recent years. This bird is an occasional vagrant to the Indian subcontinent and western North America. Icelandic breeders overwinter in the United Kingdom and Ireland, especially in the wildfowl nature reserves of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Behavior: The whooper swan is a long distance migrant, and flies at an altitude of at speeds of up to 100 kph. Many will stop at sites during migration.

Breeding: Whooper swans pair for life. Nests are built in or near water in dense cover. The nest is mostly constructed by the female from surrounding vegetation. The female will usually lay 2–7 eggs (exceptionally 12). The eggs average in length and in width, and typically weighs . Incubation averages 35 days. The female incubates the eggs and the male is normally nearby guarding the nest and territory. At 5 days old, cygnets begin to grow rapidly, reaching by day 12 and at 40 to 45 days in age. In China and Russia, fledging occurs 90–105 days after hatching, at a mass of . In Finland, fledging occurs at 78–96 days.

Communication: When whooper swans prepare to go on a flight as a flock, they use a variety of signaling movements to communicate with each other. These movements include head bobs, head shakes, and wing flaps and influence whether the flock will take flight and if so, which individual will take the lead. Whooper swans that signaled with these movements in large groups were found to be able to convince their flock to follow them 61% of the time. In comparison, swans that did not signal were only able to create a following 35% of the time. In most cases, the whooper swan in the flock that makes the most movements (head bobs) is also the swan that initiates the flight of the flock – this initiator swan can be either male or female, but is more likely to be a parent than a cygnet. Additionally, this signaling method may be a way for paired mates to stay together in flight. Observational evidence indicates that a swan whose mate is paying attention to and participates in its partner´s signals will be more likely to follow through with the flight. Thus, if a whooper swan begins initiating flight signals, it will be less likely to actually carry through with the flight if its mate is not paying attention and is therefore less likely to join it.

They are very noisy; the calls are strident, similar to those of Bewick´s swan but more resonant and lower-pitched on average: kloo-kloo-kloo in groups of three or four.

Lifespan and Mortality: Whooper swans typically live for 10–15 years, the maximum recorded age was a bird in captivity which lived in excess of 25 years. Avian influenza can have outbreaks in the species leading to mass mortality. Power lines and lead poisoning and significant causes of death. In northern Russia, the main threats of predation are from the red fox, white-tailed eagle, and golden eagle.

Influence: Whooper swans are much admired in Europe. The whooper swan has been the national bird of Finland since 1981 and is featured on the Finnish 1 euro coin. The whooper swan is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. Musical utterances by whooper swans at the moment of death have been suggested as the origin of the swan song legend. The global spread of H5N1 reached the UK in April 2006 in the form of a dead whooper swan found in Scotland.