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Bewick's swans

 

 

A rover in nature already meets many Bewick’s swans; usually they arrive a little later than whooper swans in early spring – but this year is no usual year.

 

Bewick’s swans are only passing migrants that  breed in the Arctic tundra areas, but in spring they are numerous – about 60 000 migrants. A less experienced birdwatcher can hardly tell whooper swans and Bewick’s swans apart –they truly look very similar. Bewick’s swans have a little shorter neck and at the beak base there is less of the bright yellow colour. The plumage of last year’s juveniles is still grey as for other swan species.  They will get the ”white robes” of adult birds only at the molting in summer, and at their beak base we don’t see yellow colour yet. The trumpeting calls of Bewicks’s swans are not as powerful as those of whooper swans.

 

At the migration stops the two species often feed together. there are good observation points at the Kallaste-Mustvee shore of Lake Peipsi, Lake Lahepera järv, and also the Audru polder and the Pärnu bay.

 

Bewick’s swan observations: LINK

 

Whooper and Bewick's swans at Pikla ponds