#atratus

[fyanimaldiversity]

Leucistic black vulture (Coragyps atratus)

@ wendybirdsbyrv

[vestaignis]

Удивительные черные лебеди с птенцами.

Чёрный лебедь (лат. Cygnus atratus) — водоплавающая перелётная  птица из рода лебедей (Cygnus) семейства  утиных  (Anatidae). Он обитает повсеместно на  территории Австралии и острове Тасмания, хорошо акклиматизировался и в Новой Зеландии. В отличие от других собратьев черный лебедь не является перелетной птицей.

 Черный лебедь имеет средние среди лебедей размеры. Птицы могут весить от 5 до 9 кг, рост может достигать полутора метров, размах крыльев   до 2-х метров, самцы обычно крупнее самок. Основной цвет оперения черный с муаровым отливом, перья на краях крыльев слегка кудрявятся. Шея самая длинная среди всех лебедей, клюв ярко-красный с белым кольцом на конце.

 Длинная шея помогает лебедю доставать корм со дна водоема. Он не умеет нырять, поэтому кормится на мелководье или на берегу. Питается он преимущественно водными растениями и их корневищами, а также растениями, растущими по берегам водоемов травой, листьями и молодыми побегами кустарников и деревьев. Легенда о лебединой верности в полной мере отражает и взаимодействие в паре черных лебедей: пары у этих птиц складываются на всю жизнь.

 Внутри группы лебедей выстраиваются очень близкие отношения. И кормиться летают все вместе, и гнезда строят, и птенцов выводят очень близко друг от друга. Самец и  самка строят гнездо совместно, время насиживания они тоже разделяют друг с другом. Для строительства гнезда они  выбирают, как правило, неглубокий водоем с пресной водой, где делают из веток и другого растительного материала высокое и широкое, диаметром до 1 метра, гнездо. Со стороны оно похоже на небольшой островок, который иногда может дрейфовать по водоему. Cамка откладывает от 3 до 8 яиц. Птенцы вылупляются по очереди в течение 2х–3х дней. 

 Продолжительность жизни черных лебедей в природе около 20 лет, в неволе – значительно дольше. 

Amazing black swans with chicks.

The black swan (lat. Cygnus atratus) is a waterfowl migratory bird from the genus of swans (Cygnus) of the duck family (Anatidae). It lives throughout Australia and the island of Tasmania, and has acclimatized well in New Zealand. Unlike its other relatives, the black swan is not a migratory bird.

The black swan is of average size among swans. Birds can weigh from 5 to 9 kg, their height can reach one and a half meters, their wingspan is up to 2 meters, males are usually larger than females. The main color of the plumage is black with a moire sheen, the feathers on the edges of the wings are slightly curled. The neck is the longest among all swans, the beak is bright red with a white ring at the end.

The long neck helps the swan to get food from the bottom of the reservoir. It cannot dive, so it feeds in shallow water or on the shore. It feeds mainly on aquatic plants and their rhizomes, as well as plants growing along the banks of reservoirs - grass, leaves and young shoots of bushes and trees. The legend of swan fidelity fully reflects the interaction in a pair of black swans: pairs of these birds are for life.

A very close relationship is built within a group of swans. They all fly to feed together, build nests, and hatch chicks very close to each other. The male and female build the nest together, and they also share the incubation time. To build the nest, they usually choose a shallow body of fresh water, where they make a high and wide nest, up to 1 meter in diameter, from branches and other plant material. From the side, it looks like a small island, which can sometimes drift around the reservoir. The female lays from 3 to 8 eggs. The chicks hatch one after another within 2-3 days. The lifespan of black swans in the wild is about 20 years, in captivity - much longer.

Источник://t.me/+fxNu20lM26MwYzhi,/poknok.art/12535-chernyj-lebed-ptenec.html, //ru.wikiquote.org/wiki/Чёрный_лебедь, //www.zoopark-rostov.ru/index.php/zhivotnye/pticy/240-chernyj-lebed

[vulture-appreciation]

Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)

© Braxton Landsman

[everydayesterday]

Black Vultures.

photo by me. 2024-07-13, Nashville, TN.

[haveyouseenthisbirdpoll]

photo source

[tiifu-ndovu]

[snototter]

An aquatic garter snake (Thamnophis atratus) in Santa Cruz, California, USA

by Ron Wolf

[helluvatimes]

Black Swan

A black swan leading its juveniles in feather maintenance in the botanic gardens. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

The lake was filled with algae and weeds and they could be quite distracting. This capture was underexposed 1-2/3 stops to keep highlights. In post, the water with the weeds were then separately darkened.

[kommabortsig]

Black_swan_swimming.jpg

[critter-captures]

Bird collection post, all taken at Dierenpark De Oliemeulen in September 2024:

Harris's hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus)

Blue-fronted amazon (Amazona aestiva)

Domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo domesticus) (male)

Black vulture (Coragyps atratus)

Burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia)

[ophiophxgus]

Black vulture (Coragyps atratus)

11/09/23, Central Florida.

[vulture-appreciation]

Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)

© Natalia Allenspach

[drhoz]

#2447 - Cygnus atratus - Black Swan

Bit surprised I haven't covered these before - perhaps the post was eaten in one of the Tumblr purges.

Previously called Anas atrata and Chenopis atratus. The indigenous peoples of Australia call the black swan Kooldjak along the West and South-West coast, Gooldjak in the South East and sometimes as maali.

One of Australia’s iconic birds, and among the first evidence to European explorers that they had stumbled into some bizarro-world death continent, where the swans were black, the beavers had beaks, the rats were the size of cats, fruit had seeds on the outside, and the spiders ate the snakes.

Cygnus atratus is also famous for one other thing - up to a quarter of the pairings are homosexual - usually male. This has no effect on the viability of the species, since a pair of gay black swans will tolerate a surrogate female for as long as it takes her to lay some eggs, or simply chase off any other pairs on the lake and adopt all their children. In fact, cygnets protected by a pair of males are better off than ones raised by a mixed pair, since the flocks of cygnets end up larger - reducing the chances that a particular individual will be picked off - and the males more aggressive - and thus better and chasing off or killing predators.

There's a Latin saying in one of Juvenal's Satires - rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno - "a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan". If you're from Australia, or New Zealand in more recent decades, this saying has added irony. There's also Black Swan Theory, about the disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events, named after the completely unexpected discovery of black swans by Dutch explorers in 1697.

Why are there Black Swans in New Zealand? Some apparently managed to fly there themselves (in Australia they migrate long distances following favourable weather) but some fuckwit thought it would be a good idea to introduce more as an ornamental bird and the population exploded. They're naturalised in other parts of the world too, where people made the same mistake.

New Zealand HAD a native swan - Cygnus sumnerensis ( in Moriori: poūwa ) but it had been hunted to extinction by the mid 1400s on the main island, and the mid 1600s on the Chathams. 

Lake Mangamahoe, Taranaki, New Zealand

[haveyouseenthisbirdpoll]

photo source

[autisticplants]

A group of Black Vultures (Coragyps atratus) tear at a dead Striped Skunk (Mephitis mephitis).

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The two males frequently perform the GREETING CEREMONY, a pair-bonding display that helps solidify and reinforce their partnership: the birds face one another, raise their wings (sometimes flapping them to expose the white feathers), and call repeatedly while extending their necks and lifting their bills up.

A homosexual pair of male Black Swans performing the "greeting ceremony"

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl