Pentwater River Residents

 
Driving over the Pentwater River today, I could see some birds off in the distance. I wondered if there was anything interesting, so I stopped.



I zoomed in and it was just a bunch of Canada geese. Disappointing. But wait. There is something else out there. It's one of our native swans, the trumpeter or the tundra. Which one?



I think I've finally learned what to pay attention to. That said, these pictures are grainy because I had to zoom all the way out, including the digital zoom, which reduces picture quality. Both native swans have black bills and a straight profile from forehead to tip of beak. But the key difference, from a distance, is whether the black face patch connects to the eye. On this swan it definitely does. That makes it a trumpeter, Cygnus buccinator.



Every other time I thought I had a close shot of a trumpeter, it was a tundra swan. You can follow the link below, and even though those pictures are grainy too, you can clearly see a yellow spot that separates the eye from the black cheek.

You can also see a nice black V on the forehead.



The swan didn't really care what I thought, or what the geese thought. It was much more interested in completing some grooming.



I think my next swan goal needs to be to get close enough to get some decent pictures.

	See Tundra Swan
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