Urban Observation: Mute Swan in Leicester

Check out this Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) sauntering about the busy streets of Leicester!

A swan casually walking down Aylestone Road, never seen that before! #Leicester pic.twitter.com/0M5XE0tsh3

— Alex Hannam (@Hannam79) December 13, 2022

This species of swan is native to most of Europe and has been introduced to the eastern United States. They reside in various aquatic ecosystems, including urban lakes and ponds. However, as this tweet’s author stated, they don’t often take a stroll through town!

Despite their common name, mute swans are not incapable of vocalization. They acquired this name simply by being less noisy than other swan species, such as the whopper. Mute swans perform a song during their courting ritual and make aggressive vocalizations when feeling threatened and/or territorial. Due to their territorial nature, humans should never attempt to engage with a nearby swan as it could quickly become a dangerous interaction.

Mute swans are most readily identified by the knob atop their beaks, which is more pronounced in males. This knob swells during the breeding season, and this is when it is easiest to distinguish between males and females. The rest of the year, mute swans are generally not sexually dimorphic.

Another interesting fact about mute swans is that they can eat up to 8 pounds of aquatic vegetation per day! Their significant appetites and aggressive nature have led mute swans to commonly displace other native species present in their habitats.

References

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Mute Swan. All About Birds. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mute_Swan/

Mute swan (Cygnus Olor). iNaturalist. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/6921-Cygnus-olor

Featured image: © Olivier Morel, some rights reserved (CC-BY)

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Olivia Weklar

Graduate Student at New York University

Olivia is a graduate student in Kristin's lab at NYU. She studies the impacts of urbanization on the diet and gut microbiome of birds!

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