Mute Swan
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Anseriformes
Family:	Anatidae
Subfamily:	Anserinae
Tribe:	Cygnini
Genus:	Cygnus
Species:	C. olor
Binomial name
Cygnus olor (Gmelin, 1789)
Synonyms
Anas olor Gmelin, 1789 Sthenelides olor (Gmelin, 1789) Cygnus immutabilis Yarrell, 1838

The Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is a species of swan, and thus a member of the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae. It is native to much of Europe and Asia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is also an introduced species in North America, Australasia and southern Africa. The name 'mute' derives from it being less vocal than other swan species.^[2][3][4] Measuring 125 to 170 centimetres (49 to 67 in) in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange bill bordered with black. It is recognisable by its pronounced knob atop the bill.

Taxonomy[link]

The Mute Swan was first formally described by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin as Anas olor in 1789, and was transferred by Johann Matthäus Bechstein to the new genus Cygnus in 1803. It is the type species of the genus Cygnus.^[5] Both cygnus and olor mean "swan" in Latin; cygnus is related to the Greek kyknos.^[6][7] The synonym Sthenelides olor has occasionally been used in the past.

Despite its Eurasian origin, its closest relatives are the Black Swan of Australia and the Black-necked Swan of South America, not the other Northern Hemisphere swans.^[2] The species is monotypic with no living subspecies.^[2][4]

Evolution[link]

Mute Swan subfossils, 6,000 years old, have been found in post-glacial peat beds of East Anglia, Great Britain.^[8] They have also been recorded from Ireland east to Portugal and Italy,^[9] and from France, 13,000 BP (Desbrosse and Mourer-Chauvire 1972–1973).^{[Full citation needed]} The paleosubspecies Cygnus olor bergmanni, which differed only in size from the living bird, is known from fossils found in Azerbaijan.^{[citation needed]}

Fossils of swan ancestors more distantly allied to the Mute Swan have been found in four U.S. states: California, Arizona, Idaho and Oregon.^[10] The timeline runs from the Miocene to the late Pleistocene, or 10,000 BP. The latest find was in Anza Borrego Desert, a national park in California.^[10] Fossils from the Pleistocene include Cygnus paloregonus from Fossil Lake, Oregon, Froman's Ferry, Idaho, and Arizona, referred to by Howard in The Waterfowl of the World as "probably the mute type swan".^[11]

The largest Mute Swans are found in the Caspian Sea area, on migration.^[12]

Description[link]

"Polish Swan" on the right

Finding food underwater

Banded mute swan in New York

Adults of this large swan typically range from 140 to 160 cm (55 to 63 in) long, although can range in extreme cases from 127 to 170 cm (50 to 67 in), with a 200 to 240 cm (79 to 94 in) wingspan.^[13] Males are larger than females and have a larger knob on their bill. On average, this is the second largest waterfowl species after the Trumpeter Swan, although male Mute Swans can easily match or even exceed a male Trumpeter in mass.^[14][15]

The Mute Swan is one of the heaviest flying birds, with males (known as cobs) averaging about 12 kg (26 lb) and the slightly smaller females (known as pens) weighing about 9 kg (20 lb).^[16] While the top normal weight for a big cob is 15 kg (33 lb), one unusually big Polish cob weighed almost 23 kg (51 lb) and this counts as the largest verified weight for a flying bird, although it has been questioned whether this heavyweight could still take flight.^[17] Its size, orange-reddish bill and white plumage make this swan almost unmistakable at close quarters. Compared with the other Northern white swans, the Mute Swan can easily be distinguished by its curved neck and orange, black-knobbed bill. Unlike most other Northern swan species (who usually inhabit only pristine wetlands without regular human interference), the Mute Swan has, in some parts of the world, become habituated and fearless towards humans. Such swans are often seen at close range in urban areas with bodies of water.

Young birds, called cygnets, are not the bright white of mature adults, and their bill is dull greyish-black, not orange, for the first year. The down may range from pure white to grey to buff, with grey/buff the most common. The white cygnets have a leucistic gene. All Mute Swans are white at maturity, though the feathers (particularly on the head and neck) are often stained orange-brown by iron and tannins in the water.

The morph immutabilis ("Polish Swan") has pinkish (not dark grey) legs and dull white cygnets; as with white domestic geese, it is only found in populations with a history of domestication.^[18]

Behavior[link]

Mute Swans nest on large mounds that they build with waterside vegetation in shallow water on islands in the middle or at the very edge of a lake. They are monogamous and often reuse the same nest each year, restoring or rebuilding it as needed. Male and female swans share the care of the nest, and once the cygnets are fledged it is not uncommon to see whole families looking for food.They feed on a wide range of vegetation, both submerged aquatic plants which they reach with their long necks, and by grazing on land. The food commonly includes agricultural crop plants such as oilseed rape and wheat, and feeding flocks in the winter may cause significant crop damage, often as much through trampling with their large webbed feet, as through direct consumption.^[19]

Unlike Black Swans, Mute Swans are usually strongly territorial with just a single pair on smaller lakes, though in a few locations where a large area of suitable feeding habitat is found they can be colonial. The largest colonies have over 100 pairs, such as at the colony at Abbotsbury Swannery in southern England, and at the southern tip of Öland Island, Ottenby Preserve, in the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea, and can have nests spaced as little as 2 metres (7 ft) apart.^[18][20] Non-mated juveniles up to 3–4 years old also commonly form larger flocks, which can total several hundred birds, often at regular traditional sites.^[21] A notable flock of non-breeding birds is found on the River Tweed estuary at Berwick-upon-Tweed in northeastern England, with a maximum count of 787 birds.^[22] Once the adults are mated they seek out their own territories and often live close to ducks and gulls, which may take advantage of the swan's ability to reach deep water weeds, which tend to spread out on the water surface.

The Mute Swan is less vocal than the noisy Whooper and Bewick's Swans; the most familiar sound associated with Mute Swan is the vibrant throbbing of the wings in flight. This sound is unique to the species, and can be heard from a range of 1 to 2 kilometres (0.6 to 1 mi), indicating its value as a contact sound between birds in flight.^[18] They do however make a variety of grunting, hoarse whistling, and snorting noises, especially in communicating with their cygnets, and usually hiss at predators trying to enter their territory.

Nesting in early spring, Aabach (Greifensee) in Wetzikon, Switzerland

Although this bird can be tame, especially to those who feed it daily, it is aggressive in defence of its nest, and its size and impressive hissing make it a formidable adversary for animals as large as a coyote. Various predators are potential predators of cygnets and adults must be regularly vigilant. In New York, the most common predators of cygnets are common snapping turtles.^[23] Large waterfowl, such as Canada Geese, may also be aggressively driven off, and Mute Swans regularly attack people who enter their territory.^[23] The cob is also responsible for defending the cygnets while on the water, and will sometimes attack small watercraft, such as canoes, that it feels are a threat to its young. The cob will also try and chase the predator out of his family territory, and will keep animals such as foxes and raptors at bay. Healthy adults are rarely predated, though canids such as coyotes, felids such as lynxes and bears can pose a threat to infirm ones (healthy adults can usually swim away from danger unless defending nests) and there are a few cases of healthy adults falling prey to golden eagles.^[24][25]

The familiar pose with neck curved back and wings half raised, known as busking, is a threat display, mainly shown by males but also females to a small extent. Black Swans and Whooper Swans are less aggressive and are not as defensive against predators. Trumpeter Swans will sometimes leave their nests if threatened. Mute Swans will attack land animals in defense of their families, during the period before fledging of their offspring^[vague] (which, at six months, is longer than that of most other birds).^{[citation needed]}

Distribution and habitat[link]

Landing on a canal in Ireland

The Mute Swan is found naturally mainly in temperate areas of Europe across western Asia, as far east as the Russian Maritimes, near Sidemi.^[26] Gmelin (1789) and John Latham (1824)^[12] reported Mute Swans present in Kamchatka in the 18th century.

It is partially migratory throughout northern latitudes in Europe and Asia, as far south as north Africa and the Mediterranean. It is known and recorded to have nested in Iceland and is a vagrant to that area, as well as to Bermuda, according to the U.N. Environmental Programme chart of international status chart of bird species, which places it in 70 countries, breeding in 49 countries, and vagrant in 16 countries. While most of the current population in Japan is introduced, Mute Swans are depicted on scrolls more than a thousand years old, and wild birds from the mainland Asian population still occur rarely in winter. Natural migrants to Japan usually occur along with Whooper and sometimes Bewick's Swans.

The Mute Swan is protected in most of its range, but this has not prevented illegal hunting and poaching. It is often kept in captivity outside its natural range, as a decoration for parks and ponds, and escapes have happened. The descendants of such birds have become naturalised in the eastern United States and Great Lakes, much as the Canada Goose has done in Europe.

World population[link]

Native populations[link]

The total native population of Mute Swans is about 500,000 birds at the end of the breeding season (adults plus young), of which 350,000 are in the former Soviet Union.^[2] The largest single breeding concentration is 11,000 pairs in the Volga Delta.^[3]

The population in the United Kingdom is about 22,000 birds, as of the 2006-2007 winter,^[27] a slight decline from the peak of about 26,000-27,000 birds in 1990.^[3] This includes about 5,300 breeding pairs, the remainder being immatures.^[28] Other significant populations in Europe include 6,800-8,300 breeding pairs in Germany, 4,500 pairs in Denmark, 4,000-4,200 pairs in Poland, 3,000-4,000 pairs in the Netherlands, about 2,500 pairs in Ireland, and 1,200-1,700 pairs in Ukraine.^[3]

Populations in western Europe were largely exterminated by hunting pressure in the 13th-19th centuries, with the exception of semi-domesticated birds maintained as poultry by large landowners. Better protection in the late 19th and early 20th centuries allowed birds to return to most or all of their former range.^[29][30] More recently in the period from about 1960 up to the early 1980s, numbers declined significantly again in many areas, primarily due to lead poisoning from birds swallowing discarded fishing sinkers made from lead. After lead weights were replaced by other less toxic alternatives, Mute Swan numbers increased again rapidly.^[3]

Introduced populations[link]

Mute Swans have been introduced into North America and the increase in numbers has deemed it to be an invasive species. Other introduced populations are small, with around 200 in Japan, less than 200 in New Zealand and Australia, and about 120 in South Africa.^[2]

North America[link]

The Mute Swan was introduced to North America in the late 19th century. Recently, it has been widely viewed as an invasive species because of its rapidly increasing numbers and impacts on other waterfowl and native ecosystems. For example, a study of population sizes in the lower Great Lakes from 1971 to 2000 found that Mute Swan numbers were increasing at an average rate of at least 10% per year, doubling the population every seven to eight years.^[31] Several studies have concluded that Mute Swans severely reduce densities of submerged vegetation where they occur.^[32]

In 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to "minimize environmental damages attributed to mute swans" by reducing their numbers in the Atlantic Flyway to pre-1986 levels, a 67% reduction at the time. According a report published in the Federal Register of 2003^[33] the proposal was supported by all thirteen state wildlife agencies which submitted comments as well as by 43 bird conservation, wildlife conservation and wildlife management organisations. Ten animal rights organisations and the vast majority of comments from individuals were opposed. At this time Mute Swans were protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act due to a court order, but in 2005 the United States Department of the Interior officially declared them a non-native, unprotected species.^[34] Mute Swans are protected in some areas of the U.S. by local laws, as for example in Connecticut.^[35]

The status of the Mute Swan as an introduced species in North America is disputed by the pressure group "Save The Mute Swans" founded by Kathryn Burton.^[36] They assert that Mute Swans are native in the region and therefore deserving of protection. They claim that Mute Swans had origins from Russia and cite historical sightings and fossil records. These claims are specifically rejected by the U.S. Department of the Interior as specious.^[34]

New Zealand[link]

The Mute Swan had absolute protection in New Zealand under the Wildlife Act 1953 but this was changed in June 2010 to a lower level of protection. It still has protection but is now able to be killed or held in captivity at the discretion of the Minister of Conservation.^[37]

Cultural references[link]

• The term swan song comes from the belief that the mute swan would live its whole life without singing, and would then sing one beautiful song just before death.
• A Mute Swan was shown on the 2004 commemorative Irish Euro coin to mark the accession of the 10 new member states which occurred during the Irish Presidency of the European Union.
• The Mute Swan has been the national bird of Denmark since 1984. Prior to that, the Skylark was considered Denmark's national bird (since 1960).
• The fairy tale The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen tells the story of a cygnet ostracised by his fellow barnyard fowl because of his perceived homeliness. To his delight (and to the surprise of others), he matures into a graceful swan, the most beautiful bird of all.
• Today, the Crown (the British monarch) retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water, but the Queen only exercises her ownership on certain stretches of the Thames and its surrounding tributaries. This ownership is shared with the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies, who were granted rights of ownership by the Crown in the 15th century.^[38] See Swan upping.
• The Mute Swans in the moat at the Bishops Palace at Wells Cathedral in Wells, England have for centuries been trained to ring bells via strings attached to them to beg for food. Two swans are still able to ring for lunch.^[39]
• The pair of swans in the Boston Public Garden are named Romeo and Juliet after the Shakespearian couple; however, it was found that both are female.^[40]
• Camille Saint-Saëns composed a movement called Le Cygne in The Carnival of the Animals. It is played by solo cello and two pianos and represents a swan gliding over the water (cello) and the ripples it creates (pianos).

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cygnus olor

• Mute Swan media at ARKive
• Mute Swan on the Internet Bird Collection
• mtDNA Mute Swan video The mitochondrial DNA sequence of 'Cygnus olor' translated into music.

Look up mute in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Mute may refer to:

• Muteness, a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak
• Mute, a silent letter in phonology
• Mute (film), an upcoming sequel to the movie Moon
• Mute (death customs) a professional mourner in Victorian and other European cultures
• Mute (music), a device used to alter the sound of a musical instrument
• Mute Records, a record label in the United Kingdom
• MUTE, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network
• Mute Magazine, a United Kingdom arts magazine
• Mute (album), a 2000 compilation album from Hush Records featuring several indie rock acts
• Muted (album), a 2003 album from hip hop artist Alias
• "Mute" (The Twilight Zone), an episode of The Twilight Zone
• "Mute" (short story), written by Stephen King

See also[link]

• A switch or button on an electronic audio mixer which silences a channel
• A tuner mute button, a switch on a bass instrument amplifier which silences the sound outputs

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2011)

Swans
Mute Swans (Cygnus olor)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Anseriformes
Family:	Anatidae
Subfamily:	Anserinae
Tribe:	Cygnini Vigors, 1825
Genus:	Cygnus Garsault, 1764
Species
6–7 living, see text.
Synonyms
Cygnanser Kretzoi, 1957

Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae. There are six to seven species of swan in the genus Cygnus; in addition there is another species known as the Coscoroba Swan, although this species is no longer considered related to the true swans. Swans usually mate for life, though 'divorce' does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight.

Etymology and terminology[link]

The word swan is derived from Old English swan, akin to the German Schwan and Dutch zwaan and Swedish svan, in turn derived from Indo-European root *swen (to sound, to sing).^[1] Young swans are known as swanlings or as cygnets, from Greek κύκνος, kýknos and from the Latin word cygnus ("swan") and the Old French suffix -et ("little"). An adult male is a cob, from Middle English cobbe (leader of a group); an adult female is a pen.

Description[link]

The swans are the largest members of the duck family Anatidae, and are among the largest flying birds. The largest species, including the mute swan, trumpeter swan, and whooper swan, can reach length of over 1.5 m (60 inches) and weigh over 15 kg (33 pounds). Their wingspans can be almost 3 m (10 ft). Compared to the closely related geese they are much larger in size and have proportionally larger feet and necks.^[2] They also have a patch of unfeathered skin between the eyes and bill in adults. The sexes are alike in plumage, but males are generally bigger and heavier than females.

The Northern Hemisphere species of swan have pure white plumage but the Southern Hemisphere species are mixed black and white. The Australian Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings; the chicks of black swans are light grey in colour, and the South American Black-necked Swan has a black neck.

The legs of swans are normally a dark blackish grey colour, except for the two South American species, which have pink legs. Bill colour varies: the four subarctic species have black bills with varying amounts of yellow, and all the others are patterned red and black. Although most birds generally do not have teeth, swans are known to be an exception to this, having small jagged 'teeth' as part of their beaks used for catching and eating fish. The Mute Swan and Black-necked Swan have a lump at the base of the bill on the upper mandible.

Distribution and movements[link]

Whooper Swans migrate from Iceland, Scandinavia, and Northern Russia to Europe, Central Asia, China, and Japan

The swans are generally found in temperate environments, rarely occurring in the tropics. A group of swans is called a bevy or a wedge in flight. Four (or five) species occur in the Northern Hemisphere, one species is found in Australia and New Zealand and one species is distributed in southern South America. They are absent from tropical Asia, Central America, northern South America and the entirety of Africa. One species, the Mute Swan, has been introduced to North America, Australia and New Zealand.^[2]

Several species are migratory, either wholly or partly so. The Mute Swan is a partial migrant, being resident over areas of Western Europe but wholly migratory in Eastern Europe and Asia. The Whooper Swan and Tundra Swan are wholly migratory, and the Trumpeter Swans are almost entirely migratory.^[2] There is some evidence that the Black-necked Swan is migratory over part of its range, but detailed studies have not established whether these movements are long or short range migration.^[3]

Behavior[link]

Mute Swan's nest with two unhatched eggs

Swans feed in the water and on land. They are almost entirely herbivorous, although they may eat small amounts of aquatic animals. In the water food is obtained by up-ending or dabbling, and their diet is composed of the roots, tubers, stems and leaves of aquatic and submerged plants.^[2]

Mute swan threatens a photographer in Toyako, Japan

Swans form socially monogamous pair bonds that last for many years, and in some cases these can last for life.^[4] These bonds are maintained year round, even in gregarious and migratory species like the Tundra Swan, which congregate in large flocks in the wintering grounds.^[5] The nest is on the ground near water and about a metre across. Unlike many other ducks and geese the male helps with the nest construction. Average egg size (for the mute swan) is 113×74 mm, weighing 340 g, in a clutch size of 4 to 7, and an incubation period of 34–45 days.^[6] With the exception of the whistling ducks they are the only anatids where the males aid in incubating the eggs.

Swans are known to aggressively protect their nests. One man was suspected to have drowned in such an attack.^[7][8]

Systematics and evolution[link]

All evidence suggests that the genus Cygnus evolved in Europe or western Eurasia during the Miocene, spreading all over the Northern Hemisphere until the Pliocene. When the southern species branched off is not known. The Mute Swan apparently is closest to the Southern Hemisphere Cygnus (del Hoyo et al., eds, Handbook of the Birds of the World); its habits of carrying the neck curved (not straight) and the wings fluffed (not flush) as well as its bill color and knob indicate that its closest living relative is actually the Black Swan. Given the biogeography and appearance of the subgenus Olor it seems likely that these are of a more recent origin, as evidence shows by their modern ranges (which were mostly uninhabitable during the last ice age) and great similarity between the taxa.

Genus Cygnus:

• Subgenus Cygnus
  • Mute Swan, Cygnus olor, is a Eurasian species that occurs at lower latitudes than Whooper Swan and Bewick's Swan across Europe into southern Russia, China and the Russian Maritimes. Recent fossil records, according to the British Ornithological Union, show Cygnus olor is among the oldest bird species still extant and it has been upgraded to "native" species in several European countries, since this bird has been found in fossil and bog specimens dating back thousands of years. Common temperate Eurasian species, often semi-domesticated descendants of domestic flocks, are naturalized in the United States and elsewhere.

Black-necked swan at WWT London Wetland Centre

• Subgenus Chenopis
  • Black Swan, Cygnus atratus of Australia, and introduced in New Zealand
    • †New Zealand Swan, Cygnus atratus sumnerensis, an extinct subspecies of the Black Swan from New Zealand and the Chatham Islands
• Subgenus Sthenelides
  • Black-necked Swan, Cygnus melancoryphus of South America
• Subgenus Olor
  • Whooper Swan, Cygnus cygnus breeds in Iceland and subarctic Europe and Asia, migrating to temperate Europe and Asia in winter
  • Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator is the largest North American swan. Very similar to the Whooper Swan (and sometimes treated as a subspecies of it), it was hunted almost to extinction but has since recovered
  • Tundra Swan, Cygnus columbianus is a small swan which breeds on the North American tundra, further north than Trumpeter Swan. It winters in the USA
    • Bewick's Swan, Cygnus (columbianus) bewickii is the Eurasian form that migrates from Arctic Russia to western Europe and eastern Asia (China, Japan) in winter. It is often considered a subspecies of C. columbianus, creating the species Tundra Swan.

Adult male Trumpeter Swan brooding it's wings

The fossil record of the genus Cygnus is quite impressive, although allocation to the subgenera is often tentative; as indicated above, at least the early forms probably belong to the C. olor - Southern Hemisphere lineage, whereas the Pleistocene taxa from North America would be placed in Olor. A number of prehistoric species have been described, mostly from the Northern Hemisphere. Among them was the giant Siculo-Maltese C. falconeri, which was taller (though not heavier) than the contemporary local dwarf elephants (Elephas falconeri).

Fossil swans

• †Cygnus csakvarensis (Late Miocene of Hungary) - formerly Cygnanser
• †Cygnus mariae (Early Pliocene of Wickieup, USA)
• †Cygnus verae (Early Pliocene of Sofia, Bulgaria)
• †Cygnus liskunae (Middle Pliocene of W Mongolia)
• †Cygnus hibbardi (?Early Pleistocene of Idaho, USA)
• †Cygnus sp. (Early Pleistocene of Dursunlu, Turkey: Louchart et al. 1998)
• †Giant Swan, Cygnus falconeri (Middle Pleistocene of Malta and Sicily, Mediterranean)
• †Cygnus paloregonus (Middle Pleistocene of WC USA) - includes "Anser" condoni and C. matthewi
• †Dwarf Swan Cygnus equitum (Middle - Late Pleistocene of Malta and Sicily, Mediterranean)
• †Cygnus lacustris (Late Pleistocene of Lake Eyre region, Australia) - formerly Archaeocygnus
• †Cygnus sp. (Pleistocene of Australia)^{[citation needed][verification needed]}

The supposed fossil swans "Cygnus" bilinicus and "Cygnus" herrenthalsi were, respectively, a stork and some large bird of unknown affinity (due to the bad state of preservation of the referred material). Anser atavus is sometimes placed in Cygnus.

The Coscoroba Swan (Coscoroba coscoroba) from South America, the only species of its genus, is apparently not a true swan. Its phylogenetic position is not fully resolved; it is in some aspects more similar to geese and shelducks.

Role in culture[link]

Swan meat has been regarded as a luxury food in England since at least the reign of Elizabeth I. A recipe for baked swan survives from that time. "To bake a Swan Scald it and take out the bones, and parboil it, then season it very well with Pepper, Salt and Ginger, then lard it, and put it in a deep Coffin of Rye Paste with store of Butter, close it and bake it very well, and when it is baked, fill up the Vent-hole with melted Butter, and so keep it; serve it in as you do the Beef-Pie."^[9]

"Łabędź" (Polish for "Swan") is a Polish/Lithuanian coat of arms which was used by many Polish szlachta and Lithuanian Bajorai (noble) families under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The variant here given is the coat-of-arms of writer Henryk Sienkiewicz's family.

Many of the cultural aspects refer to the Mute Swan of Europe. Perhaps the best known story about a swan is The Ugly Duckling fairytale. The story centres on a duckling that is mistreated until it becomes evident he is a swan and is accepted into the habitat. He was mistreated because real ducklings are, according to many, more attractive than a cygnet, yet cygnets become swans, which are very attractive creatures. Swans are often a symbol of love or fidelity because of their long-lasting, apparently monogamous relationships. See the famous swan-related operas Lohengrin and Parsifal.

Swans feature strongly in mythology. In Greek mythology, the story of Leda and the Swan recounts that Helen of Troy was conceived in a union of Zeus disguised as a swan and Leda, Queen of Sparta. Other references in classical literature include the belief that upon death the otherwise silent Mute Swan would sing beautifully - hence the phrase swan song; as well as Juvenal's sarcastic reference to a good woman being a "rare bird, as rare on earth as a black swan", from which we get the Latin phrase rara avis, rare bird.

The Irish legend of the Children of Lir is about a stepmother transforming her children into swans for 900 years. In the legend The Wooing of Etain, the king of the Sidhe (subterranean-dwelling, supernatural beings) transforms himself and the most beautiful woman in Ireland, Etain, into swans to escape from the king of Ireland and Ireland's armies. The swan has recently been depicted on an Irish commemorative coin.

Indeed, swans are also present in Irish history through the poems of W.B. Yeats. Notably the poem Wild Swans at Coole has a heavy focus on the mesmerising characteristics of the swan. Yeats also recounts the myth of Leda and the Swan in his poetry.

In Norse mythology, there are two swans that drink from the sacred Well of Urd in the realm of Asgard, home of the gods. According to the Prose Edda, the water of this well is so pure and holy that all things that touch it turn white, including this original pair of swans and all others descended from them. The poem Volundarkvida, or the Lay of Volund, part of the Poetic Edda, also features swan maidens.

In the Finnish epic Kalevala, a swan lives in the Tuoni river located in Tuonela, the underworld realm of the dead. According to the story, whoever killed a swan would perish as well. Jean Sibelius composed the Lemminkäinen Suite based on Kalevala, with the second piece entitled Swan of Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen). Today, five flying swans are the symbol of the Nordic Countries and the whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus) is the national bird of Finland.

French satirist François Rabelais wrote in Gargantua and Pantagruel that a swan's neck was the best toilet paper he had encountered.

St Hugh of Lincoln with swan

A swan is one of the attributes of St Hugh of Lincoln based on the story of a swan who was devoted to him.

In Latin American literature, the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867–1916) consecrated the swan as a symbol of artistic inspiration by drawing attention to the constancy of swan imagery in Western culture, beginning with the rape of Leda and ending with Wagner's Lohengrin. Darío's most famous poem in this regard is Blasón - "Coat of Arms" (1896), and his use of the swan made it a symbol for the Modernismo poetic movement that dominated Spanish language poetry from the 1880s until the First World War. Such was the dominance of Modernismo in Spanish language poetry that the Mexican poet Enrique González Martínez attempted to announce the end of Modernismo with a sonnet provocatively entitled, Tuércele el cuello al cisne - "Wring the Swan's Neck" (1910).

Swans are revered in Hinduism, and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic is to be in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan's feather does not get wet although it is in water. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa or hansa, and it is the vehicle of many deities like the goddess Saraswati. It is mentioned several times in the Vedic literature, and persons who have attained great spiritual capabilities are sometimes called Paramahamsa ("Great Swan") on account of their spiritual grace and ability to travel between various spiritual worlds. In the Vedas, swans are said to reside in the summer on Lake Manasarovar and migrate to Indian lakes for the winter. They're believed to possess some powers such as the ability to eat pearls. They are also believed to be able to drink up the milk and leave the water from a saucer of milk adulterated with water. This is taken as a great quality, as shown by this Sanskrit verse:

Swan from flowers. Baku, Azerbaijan

Hindu iconography typically shows the Mute Swan. It is wrongly supposed by many historians^[who?] that the word hamsa only refers to a goose^{[citation needed]}, since today swans are no longer found in India, not even in most zoos. However, ornithological checklists clearly classify several species of swans as vagrant birds in India.

The ballet Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky is considered among both the most important works of this composer and among the often-performed classics of ballet. It is partially based on an ancient German legend, which tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse—to which were added similar elements from Russian folk tales.^[10] Some major elements (girls turned to swans and living in a lake, and a hero falling in love with one of them) are also shared by the Irish mythology story of Caer Ibormeith.

The 1994 American animated film The Swan Princess is also derived from the same ancient sources, featuring an evil sorcerer who kidnaps a princess named Odette and curses her so that she is a swan by day and a woman by night, until the prince comes to rescue her.

Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Wild Swans" is similar to the "Children of Lir" story. The king has eleven sons and one daughter, named Elisa. The evil stepmother turns the eleven brothers into swans and banishes Elisa, an interesting exception to the tradition of swan maidens.

The Black Swan is the faunal emblem of the Australian state of Western Australia and swans are featured on the coat of arms of Canberra, the Australian capital.

The Sydney Swans are an Australian rules football team based in Sydney, Australia.

See also[link]

• Royal Swans

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Swans

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cygnus

• Louchart, Antoine; Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile; Guleç, Erksin; Howell, Francis Clark & White, Tim D. (1998): L'avifaune de Dursunlu, Turquie, Pléistocène inférieur: climat, environnement et biogéographie. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris IIA 327(5): 341–346. [French with English abridged version] doi:10.1016/S1251-8050(98)80053-0
• The Swan Sanctuary Shepperton,England
• A Colony of Swans in Adda River (Italy) Video on You Reporter
• Swan photos on Imeleon
• Swan videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• Swan paintings on Artinthepicture
• A History of British Birdsvep:Joucen