Sorry for the late post but I wanted to finish processing the photos and to get some fresh eyes on them. Yesterday around noon I was able to get back to try for the Trumpeter Swan at Nyack Beach State Park (after dipping last week). This time it was easily located, feeding about 20-30 feet of directly off the State beach and parking area seawall. The light was decent that day and I was able to get a number of clear photos. I have posted three shots to my Flickr site (see link below). One of the photos shows what appears to be damage to the base of the right wing (not the kind of damage associated with wing clipping). I also noticed that on the occasions when the associated geese would take off and fly, the swan up raise up and start flapping, but would then settle back down. I never saw it fly.
I stupidly forgot to try to get shots of the legs to look for bands. This would have been easy to do when the bird was actively feeding. I did, inadvertently, obtain two suboptimal shots while it was feeding. These clearly show no evidence of a band on the right leg. One photo does show a hint of a light area that could be a band on the left leg, but I can't rule out that this is just the feathering on the leg. Anyone going to see this bird might try to get a clear shot of the left leg/foot. Alan Wells By the way, if you go, the Beach parking lot is not open and there is no legal street parking in the immediate vicinity. I had my wife stay with the car. See the last three photos in the "Swans" album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/awells48/albums/72157639248455094 -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
