Aida Jolie

Black Swans

 

Yesterday my family and I went to Le Waux Hall Park in Belgium.  This is a really nice park with two ponds, playground, and many trails.  It had been two years since that last time we had visited this park and to my surprise there were two black swans this time.  A first time for me I actually did not know black swans existed until yesterday but Kelly on the other hand had seen black swans before.  There are seven species of swans in the world, all pure white except for the Australian black swan and the South American black-necked swan.

The first European to see a black swan is believed to be the Dutch sailor Antonie Caen who described the species during his visit to the Shark Bay area in 1636. Later, the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh captured several birds on the Swan River, Western Australia in 1697, but many people in Europe did not believe him, as at that time it was believed that all swans were white. Three of the captured birds were taken to Batavia, where they lived for some time. However, the species wasn’t reported again until the arrival of the ‘First Fleet’ in 1788. The black swan was first described scientifically by Dr. John Latham in 1790.

The black swan was introduced as a game bird from Australia to New Zealand in the 1860s but also probably reached here naturally at about the same time as the population grew and spread very rapidly.  The Heather and Robertson field guide says that “by the 1960s, there were well over 100,000 birds in New Zealand with 70,000 on Lake Ellesmere alone.  The main concentrations of the birds are now to be found on coastal lakes and lagoons around the South Island and in the Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay in the North Island, as well as inland lakes in the Waikato and Rotorua. The black swan is the state bird of Western Australia.

The same day I did what was expected and I googled black swans and now I am properly educated on this subject.  I assuming they are more abundant in England and not so many Stateside if any since Kelly had seen them before and I had not. I have three additional pics that I took that I can make avaialable just comment the pics are size: 3072 x 2304.

Also wanted to note that on this very same day my eight month old son Tate said his first word which was Dad Dad and he loves to repeat it alot. A proud moment in life makes you feel really happy. 

February 18, 2007 | posted in Family, Talk 

comments


Maybe You Missed These Posts:

Leave a Reply