Atlantic Flyway

The Atlantic Flyway is a bird migration route that generally follows the Atlantic Coast of North America and the Appalachian Mountains. The main endpoints of the flyway include the Canadian Maritimes and the region surrounding the Gulf of Mexico; the migration route tends to narrow considerably in the southern United States in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. which account for the high number of bird species found in those areas. Once in Florida, the flyway diverges into a path over eastern Mexico and a longer path across the Caribbean Sea via Cuba and Jamaica.
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Waterfowl

Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans.

They are strong swimmers with medium to large bodies. They have historically been an important food source, and continue to be hunted as game, or raised as poultry for meat and eggs. The domestic duck is sometimes kept as a pet.

Thrust

Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's second and third laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction the accelerated mass will cause a proportional but opposite force on that system.
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alula

Feathers on the alula are not generally considered to be flight feathers in the strict sense; though they are asymmetrical, they lack the length and stiffness of most true flight feathers. However, alula feathers are definitely an aid to slow flight. These feathers—which are attached to the bird's "thumb" and normally lie flush against the anterior edge of the wing—function in the same way as the slats on an airplane wing, allowing the wing to achieve a higher than normal angle of attack – and thus lift – without resulting in a stall. By manipulating its thumb to create a gap between the alula and the rest of the wing, a bird can avoid stalling when flying at low speeds or landing.
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Primaries

Primaries are connected to the manus (the bird's "hand", composed of carpometacarpus and phalanges); these are the longest and narrowest of the remiges (particularly those attached to the phalanges), and they can be individually rotated. These feathers are especially important for flapping flight, as they are the principal source of thrust, moving the bird forward through the air. Most thrust is generated on the downstroke of flapping flight. However, on the upstroke (when the bird often draws its wing in close to its body), the primaries are separated and rotated, reducing air resistance while still helping to provide some thrust. The flexibility of the remiges on the wingtips of large soaring birds also allows for the spreading of those feathers, which helps to reduce the creation of wingtip vortices, thereby reducing drag. The barbules on these feathers, friction barbules, are specialized with large lobular barbicels that help grip and prevent slippage of overlying feathers and are present in most of the flying birds.
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Remiges

Remiges (from the Latin for "oarsman") are located on the posterior side of the wing. Ligaments attach the long calami, or quills, firmly to the wing bones, and a thick, strong band of tendinous tissue—known as the postpatagium—helps to hold and support the remiges in place. Corresponding remiges on individual birds are symmetrical between the two wings, matching to a large extent in size and shape (except in the case of mutation or damage), though not necessarily in pattern. They are given different names depending on their position along the wing.
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Flight feathers

Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (singular remex) while those on the tail are called rectrices (singular rectrix). Their primary function is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby enabling flight. The flight feathers of some birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays, courtship rituals or feeding methods. In some species, these feathers have developed into long showy plumes used in visual courtship displays, while in others they create a sound during display flights. Tiny serrations on the leading edge of their remiges help owls to fly silently (and therefore hunt more successfully), while the extra stiff rectrices of woodpeckers help them to brace against tree trunks as they hammer. Even flightless birds still retain flight feathers, though sometimes in radically modified forms.

The moult of their flight feathers can cause serious problems for birds, as it can impair their ability to fly. Different species have evolved different strategies for coping with this, ranging from dropping all their flight feathers at once (and thus becoming flightless for some relatively short period of time) to extending the moult over a period of several years.
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Rectrices

Rectrices (from the Latin for "helmsman"), which help the bird to brake and steer in flight, lie in a single horizontal row on the rear margin of the anatomical tail. Only the central pair are attached (via ligaments) to the tail bones; the remaining rectrices are embedded into the rectricial bulbs, complex structures of fat and muscle that surround those bones. Rectrices are always paired, with a vast majority of species having six pairs. They are absent in grebes and some ratites, and greatly reduced in size in penguins. Many grouse species have more than 12 rectrices; some (including Ruffed Grouse and Hazel Grouse) have a number that varies.

birdwatching Swans Mute Species Cygnus Olor

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Swan River, Australia

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow.

The Swan River drains the Avon and coastal plain catchments, which have a total area of about 121,000 km². The Avon River contributes the majority of its freshwater flow. The climate of the catchment is Mediterranean, with mild wet winters, hot dry summers, and the associated highly seasonal rainfall and flow regime.

The Canning River rises not far from North Bannister, 100 km southeast of Perth and joins the Swan at Applecross, opening into Melville Water. The Swan and Canning rivers are salt water tidal rivers; Melville Water is their estuary, and is ideal for sailing of almost every description. Blackwall Reach is narrow and deeper, leading the river through Fremantle Harbour to the sea.

The Noongar believe that the Darling Scarp is said to represent the body of a Wagyl - a snakelike being from Dreamtime that meandered over the land creating rivers, waterways and lakes. It is thought that the Waugal created the Swan River.

While the Swan River has not been dammed, two of its tributary rivers - the Helena River and the Canning River - have been dammed for collection of water supplies, at Mundaring Weir and Canning Dam.

The river was named Swarte Swaene-Revier by Dutch explorer, Willem de Vlamingh in 1697 , after the famous black swans of the area. Vlamingh sailed with a small party up the river to around Heirisson Island. A French expedition under Nicholas Baudin also sailed up the river in 1801.

Governor Stirling's intention was that the name 'Swan River' refer only to the watercourse upstream of the Heirisson Islands.
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Abbotsbury Swannery

Abbotsbury Swannery on a 1-hectare (2-acre) site around the Fleet lagoon protected from the weather of is the only managed colony of nesting mute swans in the world. It is situated near the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset, England, 14 kilometres (9 mi) west of WeymouthLyme Bay by Chesil Beach. The colony can number over 600 swans with around 150 pairs. Written records of the swannery’s existence go back to 1393 but it probably existed well before that.

Mute Swan

The Mute Swan is a species of swan, and thus a member of the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae. It is native to much of Europe and Asia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is also an introduced species in North America, Australasia and southern Africa. The name 'mute' derives from it being less vocal than other swan species. Measuring 125 to 170 centimetres in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange bill bordered with black. It is recognisable by its pronounced knob atop the bill.
mute swan pictures

Swan with amazing voice

Swan with amazing voice

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Sleeping Mute Swans

Sleeping Mute Swans
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Trumpeter & Mute Swans in Burlington Bay

Trumpeter & Mute Swans in Burlington Bay
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Mute Swans in Cambridge

Mute Swans in Cambridge

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Hissing Swan Attack Jackerteers

Hissing Swan Attack Jackerteers

Feeding (hissing) Mute Swans

Feeding (hissing) Mute Swans

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cat and a swan

cat and a swan
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When Swans Attack

When Swans Attack

swan attack dog

swan attack dog

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Hissing Mute Swan

Hissing Mute Swan

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Monotypic and polytypic species

Monotypic and polytypic species

A monotypic species has no races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:

All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories.
The individuals vary considerably but the variation is essentially random and largely meaningless so far as genetic transmission of these variations is concerned.
The variation among individuals is noticeable and follows a pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines among separate groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such clinal variation always indicates substantial gene flow among the apparently separate groups that make up the population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene flow among them are likely to represent a monotypic species even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious.

A polytypic species has two or more races or subspecies. These are separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed (although there may be a relatively narrow hybridization zone), but which would interbreed freely if given the chance to do so. Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species.

In biology, a race is any inbreeding group, including taxonomic subgroups such as subspecies, taxonomically subordinate to a species and superordinate to a subrace and marked by a pre-determined profile of latent factors of hereditary traits.

Examples of race include:

The Key lime and the Mexican lime, both of species Citrus x aurantifolia. The Mexican lime has a thicker skin and darker green color.
The African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybicus) and the domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus).
The Western honey bee is divided into several honey bee races
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Cryptic species

Cryptic species complex
In biology, a cryptic species complex is a group of species which satisfy the biological definition of species; that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other, but their morphology is very similar (in some cases virtually identical).

Anas

Anas is a genus of dabbling ducks. It includes mallards, wigeons, teals, pintails and shovelers in a number of subgenera. Some authorities prefer to elevate the subgenera to genus rank. Indeed, as the moa-nalos are very close to this clade and may have evolved later than some of these lineages, it is rather the absence of a thorough review than lack of necessity that this genus is rather over-lumped.

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Lumping and splitting refers to a well known problem in any discipline which has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper/splitter problem occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature, biological taxa and so on. A lumper is an individual who takes a gestalt view of a definition, and assigns examples broadly, assuming that differences are not as important as signature similarities. A "splitter" is an individual who takes precise definitions, and creates new categories to classify samples that differ in key ways.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin

Johann Friedrich Gmelin (August 8, 1748 – November 1, 1804) was a German naturalist, botanist, entomologist and malacologist.
The Mute Swan was first formally described by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin as Anas olor in 1789, and was transferred by Johann Matthäus Bechstein to the new genus Cygnus in 1803. It is the type species of the genus Cygnus. Both cygnus and olor mean "swan" in Latin; cygnus is related to the Greek kyknos. The synonym Sthenelides olor has occasionally been used in the past.

In 1769, he became an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773 he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen. He was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin published several textbooks in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science, mineralogy and botany. He also published the 13th edition of Systema Naturae by Carolus Linnaeus in 1788.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin published several textbooks in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science, mineralogy and botany. He also published the 13th edition of Systema Naturae by Carolus Linnaeus in 1788.

The University of Göttingen (German: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), known informally as Georgia Augusta, is a university in the city of Göttingen, Germany.

Göttingen is a college town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is in the middle of Modern Germany.

Among his students were Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, Friedrich Stromeyer and Wilhelm August Lampadius. He was the father of Leopold Gmelin.

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology. Malacologists, is the scientific study of mollusks. Malacologists who specialize in studying only or primarily the shells of molluscs are sometimes called conchologists instead.

Mute Swan Pictures

Mute Swan

The Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is a species of swan, and thus a member of the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae. It is native to much of Europe and Asia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is also an introduced species in North America, Australasia and southern Africa. The name 'mute' derives from it being less vocal than other swan species. Measuring 125 to 170 centimetres in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange bill bordered with black. It is recognisable by its pronounced knob atop the bill.
mute swan pictures

Mute Swan

The Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is a species of swan, and thus a member of the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae. It is native to much of Europe and Asia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is also an introduced species in North America, Australasia and southern Africa. The name 'mute' derives from it being less vocal than other swan species. Measuring 125 to 170 centimetres in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange bill bordered with black. It is recognisable by its pronounced knob atop the bill.
pictures of swans

Mute Swans sleeping in a grass field

Mute Swans sleeping in a grass field

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Mute Swans sleeping in a grass field

Mute Swans sleeping in a grass field

mute swan pictures

Mute Swans drifting fastly away on Conwy River

Mute Swans drifting fastly away on Conwy River
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Mute Swans by Tan Lan

Mute Swans by Tan Lan

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Mute Swan doing Synchronized swimming

Mute Swan doing Synchronized swimming
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Mute Swan preening

Mute Swan preening

Mute Swan walking in a green field to music

Mute Swan walking in a green field to music
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Mute Swan sits down

Mute Swan sits down
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Mute Swan sailing past Trefriw

Mute Swan sailing past Trefriw

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