Swans
Swans are the largest members of the waterfowl family, distinguished by their graceful necks and predominantly snow-white plumage. There are seven species of swans found across various habitats, including rivers, lakes, and ponds on all continents except Antarctica. Their diet is diverse, comprising aquatic plants, land vegetation, fish, and invertebrates, which they often forage for by dipping their long necks into the water. Swans are known for their impressive migratory patterns, with some species traveling significant distances to warmer climates in the winter, while others remain in temperate areas year-round.
Swans typically form lifelong pair bonds, nesting and raising their young, known as cygnets, together. These cygnets are born covered in down and learn to swim shortly after hatching. Swans are social birds, often found in flocks that can range from a few dozen to thousands of individuals. Unfortunately, in the past, swans faced severe population declines due to hunting and habitat loss, but conservation efforts have helped many species recover. Swans can live for several decades in the wild and even longer in captivity, making them notable both for their beauty and their resilience.
Swans
Swan Facts
Classification:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Subkingdom: Bilateria
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Anseriformes
- Family: Anatidae (ducks, geese, and swans)
- Tribe: Cygnini
- Genus:Cygnus
- Species:Cygnus olor (mute swan),Cygnus atratus (black swan),Cygnus melancoryphus (black-necked swan),Cygnus cygnus (whooper swan),Cygnus buccinator (trumpeter swan),Cygnus columbianus (whistling swan),Cygnus bewickii (Bewick's swan)
- Geographical location: Every continent except Antarctica
- Habitat: Rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, and moist forest areas
- Gestational period: Incubation of twenty-five to forty-five days
- Life span: Twenty to thirty years in the wild; forty to fifty years in captivity
- Special anatomy: Long necks in S-curves or straight upright; short legs with scaled, webbed feet; broad, flat, strong bills
Swans, the largest members of the waterfowl family of birds, have snow-white feathers and graceful necks. There are seven swan species, which inhabit rivers, lakes, and ponds on every continent except Antarctica. They eat both on land and in water; their diet consists of land plants and grasses, aquatic plants, fish, and invertebrates. Swans must dig much of their aquatic food from bottom mud, after dipping their necks far into the water to reach it.
Many American swans nest around the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay. In winter, they migrate in a V-formation to the Carolinas at airspeeds up to sixty miles per hour, filling the air with sounds ranging from deep bass notes to those like clarinets. Swans that live in more temperate climates, such as the Great Plains of the United States, do not migrate. Eastern hemisphere swans include whistling swans and Bewick’s swans. A scarlet-billed black swan inhabits Australia. The initial ugliness of cygnets, which only lasts for a year, was the inspiration for Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling.”
Physical Characteristics of Swans
Swans reach a maximum length (from beak to tail tip) of six feet, and weigh up to thirty-five pounds. Their plumage is usually white, white plus black, or rarely all black. Whooper, Bewick’s, whistling, mute, and trumpeter swans are white. Black-necked swans have black areas on white bodies. Wingspans range from six to ten feet.
Swan necks are long and slender, usually held in a graceful S-curve. Trumpeters, whoopers, and whistlers, however, hold their necks straight upright. Swans have two short legs with huge, scale-covered, webbed feet. The tips of their strong bills are broad and flat, for optimum use in tearing underwater plants, a major part of their diet. Swans often feed by poking their heads underwater. They are not graceful on land, but fly, swim, and dive very well. All swans, including “mute” swans, hiss, bark, whistle, whoop, and cluck, especially when migrating.
The Lives of Swans
Swans form flocks to breed, nest, feed, and migrate. Depending on species, a flock has between a few dozen and thousands of individuals. Swans also form family units, comprising a set of parents with their offspring, within flocks. All swans choose mates for life. On mating, swans build nests from plants, twigs, and down, which they use over and over. Then the females, called pens, lay five to ten pale-colored eggs and incubate them until they hatch, after eighteen to thirty-nine days.
Cygnets, covered with gray to brown down, leave their nests a few days after hatching, following their parents to learn to swim and find food. Although the pen is usually responsible for the eggs, once the cygnets are born, the cob may feed and protect them. They fly for the first time at age four months. Most Northern Hemisphere swans breed yearly. Southern Hemisphere swans breed every two years. A swan is mature at age three or four and can live for twenty to thirty years in the wild or forty to fifty years in captivity.
Swan Conservation
South Americans, Europeans, Asians, and North Americans hunted trumpeters and other swans almost to extinction by eating swan meat and using their feathers for pens, hat decorations, and women’s scarves. By the 1930s, many species were in trouble; for example, under one hundred trumpeter swans were alive at that time. Legislation and protective actions have enlarged swan populations by allowing them to increase by natural reproduction.
Principal Terms
cob: a male swan
cygnet: a newly hatched swan
mandible: one of the two halves of a swan’s bill
pen: a female swan
Bibliography
Baldassarre, Guy. Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North America. 2 vols. Rev ed. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2014. Print.
Bellrose, F. C. Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North America. Rev. ed. Harrisburg: Stackpole, 1981. Print.
Fegely, Thomas D. Wonders of Geese and Swans. New York: Dodd, 1976. Print.
Pfeffer, Wendy. Mute Swans. Parsipany: Silver, 1996. Print.
Price, Alice L. Swans of the World: In Nature, History, Myth, and Art. Tulsa: Council Oaks, 1994. Print.
Schuyl, Malcolm. The Swan: A Natural History. Ludlow: Merlin Unwin, 2012. Print.
Scott, Dafila. Swans. Stillwater: Voyageur, 1995. Print.