Page 106 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

Swan, Whooper

(Cygnus cygnus)

Whooper is the largest of the swans. The body length is on average 150 cm, the wingspan
is 225 cm. The plumage of adult birds is white, there is a rusty coating on the head. The beak
is yellow at the base and black at the end. Legs are black.
It feeds on algae (along the way it eats small invertebrates and fish). In shallow-water
salmon spawning grounds, whooper swans eat eggs in autumn and winter. With an abundance
of fish, they can even partially eat the snake.
The nesting part of the range covers the territory of Eurasia from Scandinavia to the east to
the Kamchatka Peninsula, to the south to the northern regions of China and Mongolia. In the
Far East, it nests from the river basin. Anadyr south to the valley of the river. Amur and Lake
Khanka, in Koryaksky, Kamchatka Peninsula, Shantar Islands. Previously nested on Sakhalin
Island. Winters of Far Eastern birds are located in Japan, on the Korea Peninsula, in China.
During migration occurs in all areas of the Sakhalin region. Some of the birds winter in non-
freezing coastal waters and on the thermal lakes of the South Kuril Islands, southern Sakhalin
and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

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