Mute and Australian Black Swans

Okay. Here's a kicker for all you water fowl bird watchers. My partner and I live in New Orleans and have become habitual duck, goose and swan feeders. New Orleans is home to one of the largest urban parks in the US: City Park. Located near Bayou St. John, the park was once home to a plantation. The landscape is dominated by ancient live oaks festooned with an epiphytic fern (locals call it "reserection fern"), as well as "southern tree moss", which, as many of you know, is actually a bromeliad in the tillandsia family. Additionally, sable and Canary Island date palms have seeded themselves throughout the park over it's long existence, offering a very tropical landscape.

The park is filled with lagoons once accessible via Lake Ponchartrain, but have been closed off from the lake for many years. The park offers paddle boats and row boats to explore this maze of waterways. It was during a paddle boat excursion this weekend that we discovered an odd couple.

For many years, mute swans have made City Park's lagoons home. But, about two years after the 2005 hurricane, someone introduced a young pair of Australian black swans. The two species did not mix socially and were observed in downright mean territory disputes. That is, until this weekend.

To our surprise, a mute and an Australian black swan, have seemingly seen past their differences and feather color and are now inhabiting a small island in a remote lagoon. We witnessed the two, side by side, preening and behaving much as a bonded pair of swans. We were amazed at this considering the defensive behaviors displayed in the past among these two species.

Has anyone ever witnessed such a pairing? And, if these two have indeed decided to make a go at love, are they genetically compatible to rear signets next spring???

Wow that is something else!

I haven't heard of anything like that around here.

Hybrids have been recorded in zoos. Not sure about free-flying birds.

Resin

Here is a picture of the happy couple taken Saturday, Oct. 17. I have since found that waterfowl commonly cross-breed, resulting in the hybrid offspring, as pointed out by the gentleman from the UK. I plan to continue monitoring their progress and hope to be posting pics of multi-toned signets early this coming spring!

What a beautiful pair they make. I've never seen a swan, but our Grebe ducks (Clark's and Western) have been known to mate together so why not swans?

I hope we'll be seeing their off-spring in the future. Hope you'll keep an eye on them.

That is so neat, I can't wait to see what the babies look like!