[Owlet]

Today I briefly visited the small Lafarge Lake in coquitlam for a walk.

Usually the park has nothing but usual birds like Canada goose, american widgeons chickadees, bushtits and sometimes, rarely, woodpeckers, and diving ducks like goldeneye and bufflehead.

Today there was a swan there! For people who go there a lot it is quite a surprise to see a swan there since I have never seen one and everybody else was quite surprised. It sometimes walks on the ice and comes close and lets you get nice photos of it.

I was wondering if it was a Trumpeter or a Tundra Swan? I know Tundras are a rare(r) but just making sure.

Here are some photos I managed to get in the bad lighting

Mystery Swan by Adam Dhalla, on Flickr


Mystery Swan by Adam Dhalla, on Flickr


Also, I have a new website (It is still slightly under construction but mostly done) Its the same URL though, just re-designed http://adamdhalla.com/

Thanks for any help!!

[birdergirl]

Hi Adam,

This is a juvenile Trumpeter Swan. These are tricky birds to tell apart Adam but look at the bird's forehead, see where the top of the black bill connects to the eyes? On a Tundra it looks like the eyes are almost seperate from the top of the bill. On your bird you can see that the black band is broad and the eyes look directly connected to the black part of the top of the bill. There are lots of other features for juvenile Trumpeter vs Tundra as well but when you don't have a smaller Tundra to compare in the field (and many juvies can be variable) I think this one works best.

Hey great website enhancements. Looks very professional! It is so cool that you know how to do this at your age.

Looks great, thanks for sharing.
Mel

[Owlet]

thanks a lot