Whooga, maybe..? Whatever you’d call it, it’s an impressive balancing act – though to be fair, a Whooper Swan must have a pretty low centre of gravity. On the other hand, I have quite a low centre of gravity myself, and I can only stand like this for about a minute, and only so long as I stare hard at a fixed point, and don’t allow my attention to wander.
Whooper Swans are superficially similar to Bewick’s, but they’re much bigger birds, and the pair currently gracing Slimbridge with their presence were easy to pick out among the smaller waterfowl on the Rushy Pen this morning. Among swans, only Mutes are larger than this, and not by much, while a Bewick’s is only about two-thirds the weight of a Whooper. The yellow area on a Whooper’s bill extends past the nostril and ends in a sharp point, whereas in a Bewick’s Swan it’s blunter and doesn’t go past the nostril – but these markings are quite variable, so I tend to look at size and shape first, and check the bill for confirmation afterwards.
Only around thirty pairs of Whooper Swans are resident breeders in the UK, though it’s thought that the number is slowly increasing. Most of the 20,000 Whoopers we see here each year are winter migrants from Iceland, arriving in October and returning home to breed in late March or early April. They tend to winter in Scotland, north Wales, and the north of England though, and very few come as far south as the Midlands, while the 4,000 or so Bewick’s Swans that come to the UK each winter congregate at traditional wintering sites across the central belt of England, including Slimbridge. Because their population is small, and continuing to decline, the wintering Bewick’s are a big deal at Slimbridge, anxiously awaited and eagerly counted, but as a site rarity the occasional pair of Whoopers that turn up there are pretty big news too.
R and I were at Slimbridge to receive the Boy Wonder from his mother, and bring him back to the Shire for a three-night stay. There were Unpleasant Incidents on both our two previous visits, but today’s went very well – though my efforts to impress the Boy with the story of the Bewick’s Swan migration fell on stony ground. He stood with me in the Rushy hide, and listened while I breathlessly explained how far it is from Siberia, and the fact that the swans brave terrible weather, and cross mountains and seas, and countries where humans might shoot them, just so they can come to Slimbridge… and then simply said, “Why?” It was a reasonable question, but I’d barely opened my mouth to answer it when he suddenly turned, and disappeared off to do something more interesting with Granddad.
I think I need to work on my presentation skills.
R: L2, C5, D9.
