26 January, 2010
Whooper swans are a northern hemisphere swan, with a range from Iceland to beyond Japan.
Stefano Unterthiner
Growing up in a small mountain village in northwest Italy, Stefano Unterthiner spent his early years photographing in the Gran Paradiso National Park and trekking around the beau...
Hokkaido, Japan Whooper swans on Lake Kussharo at dawn. The warm waters of the volcanic lake are usually slow to ice over, making it a good wintering habitat. Whooper swans are a northern hemisphere swan, with a range from Iceland to beyond Japan. They breed on islands and beside lakes and slow-flowing rivers from mid-May, and also frequently inhabit estuaries, marshes and floodplains. Their diet consists predominantly of leaves, stems and roots of aquatic plants. Around October, the swans fly to more temperate areas for winter. One 1,280-kilometer-long migration route, from Iceland to Ireland, is possibly the longest sea crossing by any swan species.
Photo credit:
For National Geographic magazine
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