Swan facts
Our swan feeds have started this week known as our Swan Spectacular. The swans will come up to feed everyday at 3pm and 3.30pm. We have now added two morning feeds at 10.30 at the swan link and 10.45 at the Raines hide. At the moment we have 1384 swans at the centre. To learn more about swans here are a few interesting swan facts:
- All swans at Martin Mere are bread in Iceland
- There are 6/7 different species of swan
- The largest bird recorded was a male nick-named Stonker weighing in at 14kg
- Average weight for a male is 10kg
- Wing span can be up to 2.5m
- The overall population of Whooper swans in Iceland is close to 30,000
- Cold spring weather reduces the number of birds attempting to breed
- Whooper swans are generally monogamous but divorce does occur; 5.8% of paired swans re-pair whilst their original mate is still alive.
- The crossing from Iceland to the UK is probably the longest sea crossing undertaken by any swan species 12.5 hours to 4.5 days
- 500 miles migration from Iceland t the UK
- An average speed of 44 mph has been recorded.
- Studies suggest they fly no higher than 1600m, and generally prefer to fly low as they can ride out the bad weather by landing on the sea
- One of the main triggers for migration is the hours of the day
- Martin Mere is a attractive site for the swans due to the presence of a large food source
- Roughly 17% of the winter flocks are juveniles at Martin Mere
- The population of Whooper swans across Russian and Europe is estimated at between 1,000,000 and 2’000’000 bit more work to do there then!
- Rings on their legs is so WWT can monitor the population
- The oldest wild bird is 28 years old
- Whooper swans are highly territorial
- Migration uses up to 25% of weight so when they arrive at Martin Mere they will eat a lot
