FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Trumpter Swan background (photos by Morgans)

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Area Birders:

The Trumpeter Swan identified by Ed Morgan at Abingdon, VA today (3/26)
is the first Southwest Virginia record for this species.  It is the second
region record and second for the Upper Holston River watershed.

Ed first identified the bird this afternoon just before 4 p.m.

Marty Huber and Jo Ann Detta 
later joined Ed and Helen Morgan 
there to observed the
bird.  They wrote that they first 
saw the swan last Thursday 
(3/22) as they returned from 
out-of-town.  They have seen
 it almost everyday since then, 
but have not had time to 
go beyond looking at it!  They 
had no been able to study the 
bird and identify it until this afternoon with the Morgans.

Richard Kretz of Russell Co., Va wrote that The swan has been there for about 
two weeks now... "Haven't taken photos of it because I only got cursory 
glimpses 
of it and 'assumed' it was a 'Mute'... Will photograph it early tomorrow 
morning."

The only other possible Trumpeter Swan record I know of in Western Virginia was 
a
bird seen April 6, 2003 at Silver Lake in Rockingham Co.  This is about 200 
miles
northeast of Abingdon and Washington County.   It was found by
Allen Larner.  Clair Mellinger, Biology Department, Eastern Mennonite 
University,
Harrisonburg VA and saw it the same day.  He believed it had many 
characteristics 
of the Trumpeter Swan.  However it had no neck collar or band although he 
couldn't 
see the complete leg.  Some of the Trumpeter features that he noted were: 
- a distinct V of forehead feathers extending down onto the maxilla
- very straight maxilla line from the forehead to the tip of the beak 
- very straight line on the bottom of the mandible
- still has a very gray-brown head and neck;  Sibley implies that Trumpeters 
retain the darker first-year feathers longer than the Tundras 
- a very long bill 

The one character that did not fit the Trumpeter at Harrisonburg was that the 
feather 
line from the eye to the base of the mandible was not a smooth straight or even 
curved line; there was a distinct indentation in that feather line made a 
rather sharp 
downward angle as it approaches the mandible.

Birds found in Virginia are usually marked with neck-collared birds often from
the Ohio area.  They are usually birds from experimental populations released in
state adjacent to the Great Lakes.  Birds escaped from private collections in
Northern Virginia are usually sedentary despite the fact they are free-flying in
their local areas.  Virtually all of these birds are marked with neck collars.

The one record for our region was a bird found by Rick Knight. 
It was found  at a pond near Bristol, TN in Sullivan Co. on Jan. 1, 2003.  It 
was
a wing-tagged bird from Wye Marsh in Canada and migrated to our area.  Rick
learned that it returned to Wye Marsh on May 24, 2003 following one of the 
longest
migration vagrancies by any of their established population at the marsh.

The Trumpeter Swan which migrated to Bristol in 2003 was a very significant 
development  for the Ontario restoration program of this species.

April Mathes, stewardship coordinator with the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre at
Midland, Ontario, was very excited to learn that the swan, which
hatched there in June 2001, had migrated to Tennessee.

"As far as I know this is the farthest south one of the birds from the
Ontario project has migrated," Mathes explained.  "We have records since the
mid-90's of birds migrating to the United States."

Trumpeter Swans historically learned to migrate from their parents, rather
than relying on instinct, and unfortunately, the crucial knowledge of
migratory routes was lost when Trumpeters were extirpated from Ontario.
Captive breeding pairs don't have the ability or migration knowledge to
teach their offspring, and released swans must establish and learn
traditions for themselves. 

The photos in this post were taken 26 Mar 2007 by Hellen & Ed Morgan.

Let's go birding....

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN