Good afternoon, I came across someone on FB who mentioned being able to tell the difference between male and female adult Mute Swans. I'd never heard of this before, and the website she gave as a source was just someone's blog, and I wanted a more credible source of info. It is mentioned on Cornell's All About Birds:
The black knob at the base of the male Mute Swan's bill swells during the breeding season and becomes noticeably larger than the female's. The rest of the year the difference between the sexes is not obvious. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mute_Swan/overview# Thankfully we don't have many Mutes here at Montezuma, although I did see one last winter hanging out with Snow Geese near Cayuga Lake SP. I think it was pretending to be a goose. Alyssa -- Alyssa Johnson Environmental Educator 315.365.3588 Montezuma Audubon Center PO Box 187 2295 State Route 89 Savannah, NY 13146 Montezuma.audubon.org Pronouns: She, Her, Hers -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
