Re: Trumpeter Swan Juvenile Pics

["Cliff and Lisa Weisse" <october at ida dot net>]

Josh,

As I mentioned at the end of my post the rare white form is
the result of leucism and has yellow legs, even more yellow
than a typical juvenile Trumpeter, which remain yellow
through adulthood.  Leucistic Trumpeters can't produce brown
pigment, which is why they're white.  Since the Salem bird
has black legs and a brown head and neck it isn't a
leucistic Trumpeter.  This color variant is the result of a
recessive gene pairing.  In addition to WY it's also been
recorded in Island Park, Id (multiple times) and at Silver
Creek preserve near Sun Valley.  If you want to read more
about this there's an article in Birding magazine written by
Terry McEneaney, the Yellowstone National Park
ornithologist.  I don't remember which issue it was in but
it hasn't been that long ago, maybe last winter.  If you're
interested let me know and I'll try to figure out which
issue it's in.

Cliff

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