The whooper swan is the national bird of which country?

Whooper swans are much admired in Europe. The whooper swan is the national bird of Finland and is featured on the Finnish 1 euro coin.

The whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus) is a graceful, northern, pure white, wild swan that features in Finnish folklore and culture, from the Kalevala folk epic to the works of composer Jean Sibelius. During the early 20th century the numbers of whooper swans in the wild declined steeply, until by the 1950s fewer than twenty pairs bred in Finland. The swans have since recovered after being successfully spotlighted as a figurehead species for Finland’s nascent nature conservation movement; and today Finland is home to about 6,000 whoopers.

In the springtime, the sight and sound of returning flocks of migrating swans brings joy to nature-lovers across the country. Many products in Finland’s stores bear a flying swan logo from a Nordic environmental labelling scheme, or a swimming swan logo signifying food produced in Finland. Finnish euro coins feature a pair of whooper swans in flight over some quintessentially Finnish lakeland scenery.