“My husband and I have never seen a black swan before,” Ágústa Johnson told mbl.is. Ágústa and her husband live near Kirkjubæjarklaustur, South Iceland. They went looking for the bird after being alerted of its presence by friends and were rewarded by a remarkable sight.
“I think they’re being seen [in Iceland] every year now,” says ornithologist Jóhann Óli Hilmarsson. Jóhann says the birds come to Iceland from the UK, either alone or in pairs. “These birds have begun to breed in the wild in Britain and across Europe and behave like wild swans.”
Black swans originated in Australia but arrived in Europe with British and Dutch colonists who kept them as decorative birds in ponds and gardens.
