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A displaying Bewick's swan

Bewick's swan

It takes a good eye to tell the difference between Bewick's swans and whooper swans. Bewick's are smaller and their black beaks sport a small yellow blob, rather than the whooper's extended yellow wedge. In fact these yellow and black beak patterns have been extensively studied and illustrated over the years and are unique to each swan, identifying individual birds.

They breed in the cold Arctic tundra of northern Russia. The western population winters in northern Europe, with the British Isles boasting some sizeable and surprisingly musical flocks. The eastern population heads towards China and Japan for the winter season. Bewick's are actually a subspecies of the tundra swan and the smallest swan in Europe.

Scientific name: Cygnus columbianus

Rank: Species

Common names:

Tundra swan

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Distribution

The Bewick's swan can be found in a number of locations including: Arctic, Asia, China, Europe, Russia, United Kingdom, Wales. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.

Habitats

The following habitats are found across the Bewick's swan distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

Conservation Status

Least Concern

  1. EX - Extinct
  2. EW
  3. CR - Threatened
  4. EN - Threatened
  5. VU - Threatened
  6. NT
  7. LC - Least concern

Year assessed: 2009

Classified by: IUCN 3.1

About

The Tundra Swan (Cygnus columbianus) is a small Holarctic swan. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species, Cygnus bewickii (Bewick's Swan) of the Palaearctic and the Whistling Swan, C. columbianus proper, of the Nearctic. Birds from eastern Russia (roughly east of the Taimyr Peninsula) are sometimes separated as the subspecies C. c. jankowskii, but this is not widely accepted as distinct, most authors including them in C. c. bewickii. Tundra Swans are sometimes separated in the genus Olor together with the other Arctic swan species.

Bewick's Swan was named in 1830 by William Yarrell after the engraver Thomas Bewick, who specialised in illustrations of birds and animals.

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Classification

  1. Life
  2. Animals
  3. Vertebrates
  4. Birds
  5. Anseriformes
  6. Ducks, geese and swans
  7. Swans
  8. Bewick's swan

BBC News about Bewick's swan

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