I received pictures of your birds from a lady in LaGrange this morning. They are unusually dark....but the bills appear to make them mutes to me. I sent them to Brainard....maybe he will comment in a bit.
John sent from my iPhone John H. Brunjes Ph.D Kentucky Dept. Of Fish and Wildlife Resources #1 Sportsman's Lane Frankfort, KY 40601 800-858-1549 On Feb 2, 2010, at 6:38 PM, Paul McAllister <pcmcal@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Fellow birders,On Sunday, 1-31-2010 at 12:15 pm at Reformatory Lake near Buckner, KY, we observed a swan that appeared to be a juvenile hybrid black swan. It had a black neck, pinkish-black bill and a sooty black back with white flecks. It was with another swan -- mottled relatively dark gray with white and also with a pinkish-black bill. At first, we thought that both the birds were juvenile mute swans, but the black plumage on the one was so dark that we had second thoughts. Both birds had black legs and appeared to have held their necks in S shapes as do mute swans. There are two resident mute swans on the lake. The two darker swans did not associate with them and remainded together. We have returned twice to the lake, but have not seen the "dark" swans again (the resident mute swans remain). Has anyone else seen birds like these in Kentucky? --or is anyone aware of the existence of black swans in KY that may have interbred with mute swans? (According to a UK web site, hybridized black and mute swans have been recorded.)Paul and Carol McAllister Prospect KY
================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBERS==============The BIRDKY Mailing List requires you to sign your messages with first & last name, city, & state abbreviation.
-------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, send e-mail to: birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx-------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send e-mail to: birdky-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject line. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Kentucky Ornithological Society
web site at http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos.htm* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BIRDKY List Manager: Gary Ritchison, Richmond, KY
E-mail: gary.ritchison@xxxxxxx
