I can already hear the sound of excitement from at least one of my blog followers as he is reading this title. I know that Brian at Wildlife Intrigued is already scrolling through the pictures and comparing these to the swans we have in the Midwest of the USA. I have been a huge fan of his blog site, and have learned a great deal more about the birds I see while kayaking in the Midwest. We hope he, and none of the rest of our blogging community, are not disappointed in our attempt to venture into the birding world with our limited experience and lower quality photo equipment.
I do know one thing, that the idle winter months steer us towards either looking backwards at our last trips or forward to planning the new adventures. Today this is one of those time travel blogs back to last September 2018 when we were attending the Open Canoe Fest and took a side trip to the town of Hindeloopen in Friesland.
We hiked this rather large grassy dike leaving Hindeloopen heading to the parking lot outside of town. From the top we could look out over the Ijsselmeer which at one time was part of the North Sea.
Hindeloopen dike over looking the IJsselmeer
In the distance we could see a rather large group of white water birds. At first we thought they were geese.
We moved closer, we saw it was in fact a group of swans.
Mute Swans on the IJsselmeer
We normally see swans in pairs as they are placed in those largely romantic settings around castles. The Keukenhof bulb gardens rents swans each Spring to greet the 1.2 million tourist that visit. But, these large majestic birds can also be found in almost every field and canal within the Dutch countryside making it sometimes difficult for those of us to navigate a safe paddle route without being warned or threatened by these creatures.
We have three kinds of swans that can be found in The Netherlands.
Wilde zwaan – Cygnus Cygnus- (Whooper Swan)
Kleine zwaan- Cygnus columbianus – (Tundra Swan)
Knobbelzwaan – Cygnus olor (The Mute Swan) – These are the ones that are most common in The Netherlands and the ones we found in this very large group in Hindeloopen.
As the Hubby pulled out our Nikon camera he got some closer shots. I noticed there was something strange to a few of the birds and asked him to zoom in and see what it was.
Tagged Swan
Yes, strange…this one seemed to have no head! But, a yellow numbered tag was visible.
Another tagged Swan
When we returned after vacation we researched what those tag numbers meant. These are swans that were captured and tagged as part of a research program that identifies swans who feed on agricultural fields. The grazing of these birds costs farmers millions of Euros in damages each year and they are trying to find ways of tracking repeat offenders.
This was a short blog today looking back at our Hindeloopen trip of last fall. We hope for fair weather and some sunny skies this week so that I can get back out on the hiking trail.
Until then safe travels everyone!
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Three kinds of swans! That was new to me. The photo of the ‘headless’ swan was very interesting. The tagged bird did not appear to be much disturbed wearing a collar. Thank you for sharing your experience with swans!
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Thanks Peter. I am guessing that you have several types of Swans that fly through your area too.
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I was so excited the first time I saw swans in France. Love these photos!
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I had no idea there were so many varieties of swans! They are lovely. In our neck of the woods, they like to sit in farmers’ fields in huge masses and people love to take pictures of them.
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They gather here in the fields in winter also.
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Well, you know way more about swans than I do. I found this post interesting with knowledge gained. And that’s always a good thing. To learn.
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I am so glad I was able to bring something new to your day. Thanks, as always, for your continued support.😊
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Unfortunately, it only lets me give you one like!!!! First off, thanks for the shout out – appreciate that. Secondly, here at Intrigued at least, we definitely do not discourage anyone from featuring birds on their blog, especially when it comes to cool Swans. Almost positive the close up are Mute. We have those here, but they are not really liked much – non-native to US and are extremely aggressive to the native waterfowl to the point there are efforts being considered to remove them from the Great Lakes. Cute to look at, but they will take over a pond and attack anything with audacity to come near them (and by near .. anywhere in the pond). Not sure about the European variety, but you can submit tagged birds and they will tell you the background and send you a certificate of appreciation.(http://www.cr-birding.org/node/1389). Tried to blow up your image of the greater group – those also look to be Mute, but shocked there were so many together based on the behavior of the ones here – guessing that might get interesting if you were to come into their space with your kayak. Would love to get my camera on a Whooper Swan some time. Great post, keep ’em coming ha.
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Thanks. They are aggressive in the nesting season here. Small canals make it darn near impossible to avoid them. It was shocking to see so many in one place. Interesting about the Great Lakes ones. How will they get rid of them? Isn’t illegal to shoot them?
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They can remove (read kill and destroy eggs) for wildlife management reasons especially since they are considered invasive. Not sure what the approach will be, but they are somewhat limited, because relocating them at least in the US will disrupt that ecosystem as well. Looks like the less aggressive ones are getting a reprieve now according to this article https://greatlakesecho.org/2014/05/27/policy-revision-spares-non-aggressive-mute-swans-on-west-michigan-lake/
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That was an interesting read. Thanks for the link. Thin line between conservation and control.
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I’ve never seen that many swans in one place! And very nice shots–it’s common to end up with blown-out whites with these super-white birds, but you can see the feathers just right in the close-ups.
I know that New York City several years ago was going to remove all their Mute Swans in their ponds, but I can’t remember if they were going to exterminate them or just move them somewhere else. It turned out that there was such an uproar among the residents that they abandoned the plan anyway.
Nice, informative post with cool bird pictures! Keep up that bird-watching along with the rest of your adventures and let us know what else you see over there.
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Thanks for the comments on the photos. I think it helped that it was an overcast day. No washout when there isn’t sun. The sheer number made me think they were wild swans migrating. We were surprised to find out they were Mutes.
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