All:
Just got a very nice email from Christian N. who reviewed my (possible)
Trumpeter Swan listing from this morning. Short version I changed it to
Swan sp. as a 100% ID is not possible.
(Heads up this is a lengthy post, but I think of some you will learn
something new, I sure did.)
Christian had some great tips on Tundra vs Trumpeter, as well as two other
buckets of info that I think most of us would have no knowledge of: one
was what he sees as a reviewer (he sees lots of false alarms, like mine),
as well as some state or geographical knowledge that I would imagine a lot
of birders are unaware of.
Here's his ID tips:
The ID of long-distance swans is rather tricky, so I'm reticent to accept a
report of Trumpeter without some solid photos that show multiple angles of
the bill. I find the side profile to be relatively unreliable, with the
forehead feather shape being more conclusive at long distance. But, that's
only good on adults. The lack of yellow gets most people, but in reality
the yellow is usually just very small so hard to see at a great distance.
Geography tip:
Trumpeter Swans are well established along the major rivers in western CO
(you referred to some in Mesa Co.). They are very much expected there. Not
so much along the Front Range, where there might be one or two bonafide
records each winter. I don't know anything about the Rawhide birds, but I
would bet they are mis-IDed Tundras.
Reviewer "insider" things he sees:
I hate to be a skeptic, but I don't think that Tundra can be ruled out by
your description. They are the much more likely option, and this is when
they are expected to move through. The situation where swans are called
Trumpeter off the bat only to be IDed later as Tundras repeats itself like
clockwork every fall. Almost every single swan that shows up is called a
Trumpeter and then it invariably turns out that they are Tundras. This
happened with the long-staying bird at Valmont (several years in a row),
it's happened with a bird just a few meters from the road near Hygiene a
few years ago (found and mis-IDed by one of the "local hotshots"), it
happened when a group of 9 showed up at Sombrero Marsh (again, birds were
spitting distance from observers and they still called them Trumpeters when
they were Tundras), happened last fall when a co-worker found a lone Tundra
on a local pond ("I swear, the thing was huge, had to be a Trumpeter"). And
on an on.
So, I took a swing and missed it (pro tip: don't leave your camera at
home). I learned some ID tips, some geography tips (go see them on the
western slope), and I'm not the first one to mis-ID these two species.
Happy Birding
Jay Hutchins
Longmont, CO
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