Places and times seen in Munakata city

It is a winterbird. Munakata can hardly see. It is enough to accidentally see where passing through the sky in winter. In recent years, there were individuals overwintering at Sone Tideland in Kitakyushu and Imazu Flats in Fukuoka.

Characteristic

The total length is 140 cm. Same color of both sexes. It is one size larger than the small swan.
The whole body is white, the beak is yellow in the upper beak, black in the tip, and black in the lower beak. The yellow day occupies more than half of the beak and the shape of the tip is sharp. The feet are black.
Young birds are gray brown in their entire body, yellowish white at the base, pale pink before it, all become yellow with Kalei. The feathers also become white. It is the so-called Andersen's fairy tale "Ugly duckling child" state.

Habit

It lives in lakes, ponds, rivers, paddy fields, inland bays, estuaries and so on. Act with family members, eat rice and green leaves, roots, rice plant seeds etc. with paddy rice and other families.

distribution

Winterbird. It comes to Hokkaido via the Chishima archipelago, and there are those that overwinter in Hokkaido and those that move to the wintering area of ​​Honshu. Many in Tohoku region, Hokkaido, Japan Sea side. Sometimes it fly to Kyushu and overwinter.

Other

It is necessary to distinguish from swan swan. Co swans are slightly smaller than this species, and in adult birds the yellow part of the beak is small.