From Cygnet to Swan
When did you last spend an hour so completely absorbed in something in the natural world that you forgot what time it was or what else you had to do? During June I’m going to be making a special effort to get out into nature by following the Wildlife Trusts’ #30DaysWild initiative. I’ll be reflecting my experiences in this blog and looking back at my experiences and whether I’ve changed because of it.
I’ve just spent an hour at the local park with a Mute Swan and his Cygnets.
The first thing I noticed was just how waterproof the father was:
And then how fluffy and bedraggled the cygnets are. They obviously haven’t quite got their waterproofing sorted yet:
There are three cygnets in this family:
They have a problem trying to feed in the deeper water as their necks are too short to reach the bottom to pull up the pond weed. It doesn’t matter how hard they try, they can’t reach, even when they stick their bottoms in the air and try really, really hard:
They have to either feed in the very shallow water or rely on their father picking weed from the bottom and eating that. They cluster around to get first pickings of the lake vegetation as he pulls it up for them:
Then I notice something I haven’t seen before; the toothed tongue:
That’ll come in very handy for pulling up all those plants underwater.
I also love the claw on their father’s black scaly foot. Putting their foot up must be as natural to them as crossing our legs is to us. It probably helps in temperature control too:
They really are endearing creatures:
And like all babies they do seem to dribble a bit:
Where is their mother all this time? Well, I’m not sure, but just a few yards away is this female having a bit of shut-eye.
She looks like she’s sitting on a nest. I don’t know why that would be; they’ve had their clutch of eggs this year and it’s been a success.
I’ll just have to go back and check them out again soon. When they are so beautiful who could resist?
What wild experiences of the natural world do you love the most? How do they make you feel?