Swan song ...

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

The beautiful Whooper Swan (C. cygnus) is a bird of the tundra and lakes of Iceland, northern Scandinavia and Russia. Here they breed before flying south with western populations migrating to winter on lochs and fens in the countries bordering the North Sea. About 15,000 winter in the UK; mostly in Scotland, northern England and Ireland. Very few are recorded in Sussex and, in some years, none at all; a situation that has changed very little in the past 60 years.

References:

Hughes, P., 2014. Whooper Swan. The Birds of Sussex. Thetford: British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Books on behalf of the Sussex Ornithological Society, pp. 82.

Mason, M., 1996. Whooper Swan. Birds of Sussex. Sussex Ornithological Society, pp. 136-137.

BirdLife International (2014) Species factsheet: Cygnus cygnus. Downloaded from www.birdlife.org on 8th April 2014.