northeast-flora-and-fauna

For Throwback Thursday, let's look at someone I saw around a decade back, a Mute Swan . The first thing to know about them is that they aren't mute. They may say things like "Kheorrr" or "Kloorrr", and also do some grunting, snorting, and hissing. Your Mute Swan's silence probably means they have nothing to contribute to the conversation; perhaps you should consider changing the subject to something more interesting to swans. The Mute Swan isn't native to North America but was introduced here by those meddling Europeans. And while they are extremely photogenic, they can be pretty aggressive, bullying our native waterfowl out of an area. (I do wonder what happens when a belligerent Mute Swan comes upon a lake with a couple hundred Canada Geese . My guess is that a heavily outnumbered Mute Swan is going to show a certain amount of discretion around moderately large waterfowl.) I've heard that Mute Swans are especially aggressive towards other water...