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Whooper Swans are large birds with an all light-grey plumage. Although heavy, once airborne they are good fliers. The head and upper neck are darker grey than the rest. They have long necks and short, sturdy legs. The irises are dark. The relatively long, almost triangular bill has a black tip and lower mandible, while the upper mandible has a yellow base. The legs and fully webbed feet are dark-grey. Juveniles are darker-grey than adults.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Whooper Swan is available HERE .

Whooper Swans are a migratory Eurasian species; their North American counterparts are the Trumpeter Swans. Their total range extends from Europe to far-eastern Siberia. They breed in tundra across the width of Eurasia, while overwintering at lower geographic latitudes, from the northern Mediterranean via Asia Minor into central Asia, notably Mongolia, and eastern Asia (China, South Korea, Japan).

Whooper Swans migrate within Europe, overwintering on the British Isles, around the European Atlantic and North Sea coastline and in the lake districts of northern Germany and Denmark. There are also some winter quarters in inland locations of central Europe, e.g. along the rivers Rhine and Danube, but also along the Adriatic coastline, parts of Greece and the coastline of the Black Sea. Apart from a few exceptions (mostly in inland Poland and the Baltic States) their breeding grounds are located in the lake districts of inland Sweden, Finland, northern Norway and north-western Russia. Most of the British population migrate to breed in Iceland.

During the breeding season Whooper Swans have a preference for pools, bogs, swamps and other wetlands with sheltering vegetation. In their winter quarters they prefer wide open aquatic habitats, such as lakes or estuaries, because the legs of juvenile birds cannot support their body weight for long periods of time yet but rather spend extended periods of time on water, feeding on submerged vegetation.

D. Wilczynska reports spotting Whooper Swans near the river Bug, near Brok, Masovia, Poland, in April 2018.

C. Pears reports finding Whooper Swans in Iceland in May 2015.

In July 2024, J. Perttu-Kacsoh found a family of Whooper Swans with 3 cygnets on Särkimo island, on the Baltic Sea coastline of Finland.