In Reply to: re: direct from lough lannagh posted by Dianian Volski on August 26, 2009 at 22:56:21:

Its whooper swans and not Hooper swans...

From wikipedia: Whooper swans have a deep honking call and, despite their size, are powerful fliers. Whooper swans can migrate many hundreds of miles to their wintering sites in northern Europe and eastern Asia. They breed in subarctic Eurasia, further south than Bewicks in the taiga zone. They are rare breeders in northern Scotland, particularly in Orkney, and no more than five pairs have bred there in recent years. This bird is an occasional vagrant to western North America. Icelandic breeders overwinter in England and Ireland