"Bird Facts!" and news

Hey! Time for a quick "Bird Facts!" and some news about my epic birdy stuff. It was my birthday on Friday so we went to the Arundel Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre (WWT). There is tons of exotic Anatidae (ducks, geese, swans, wildfowl is what I could have said but I like to be SPECIFIC!!!! no there was no need for the !!!!'s). One of the ones I liked best was the Coscoroba Swan (Coscoroba coscoroba (what an imaginative scientific name!), featured in the "Bird Facts!"). I don't know why. Any way I will do a whole post on that BEFORE THE EGGS AND NESTS LUCKY PEOPLE IS YOU. Unfortunately I can't show you every photo we took because there is 216 of them. I LOVE THAT PLACE. It makes those birds I read about in The Great Book Of Birds a reality, not just paintings in the book (albeit very good ones). I discovered some birds I did not even know existed, chatted about scopes, all sorts of stuff SO GO THERE!!! It is totally like a boss.

"Bird Facts!" 

The Coscoroba Swan (Coscoroba coscoroba as mentioned earlier) is the smallest swan in the world with a legend call (I like it anyway) that it is named after. "Cos-cor-oo!". At the AWWC I (having never seen one in my life) mistook it for a   White Call-duck, a breed of domestic Mallard (see the post on domestic Mallards that look like wild Mallards) that was also there when it had it's head in the water. By contrast, the Trumpeter Swan with a scientific name I love (Cygnus buccinator, no, I don't have a clue why I like it so much) is the largest swan, the largest waterfowl in the world and the heaviest bird native to North America. HOLY CRAP IT IS HUGE! I think those Trumpeter Swans are going "Like a boss! Like a boss! Like a like a like a boss!" at the moment.

Trumpeter Swans, the largest swans. Look at them.
They are laughing at how small that Mallard is. Photo by Lynn M. Stone.

Coscoroba Swan, the smallest swan. Photo by me at the AWWC.