Tag Archives: mute

Swan Family (And What Is With The Foot?)

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There were lots of swans in the water along Caen Hill Locks.  Some families were swimming around together with the cygnets well grown.  One of the families had a member that had one foot up and out of the water.  I have no idea whether this is a normal behavior for swans or the sign of an injury but the swan did not seem to be having any problems.

At some point, a couple of the swans got into a little bit of hassle.  I don’t know whether this was a territorial thing or a case of swan flirting but one of them was really chasing another and seemed to be intent on getting them out of the way.  A little separation was enough to stop all of this so I don’t know what it was all about.

Ryde The White Swans

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You’ll need to be of a certain age or musical interest to get this title I suspect.  The seafront of Ryde is home to a lot of mute swans.  I knew a few lived on the boating lake but the seafront had loads of them.  It seemed you couldn’t move anywhere without seeing some more.  Swans do seem to have been a bit of a theme for our vacation as I think about it further.

They were swimming around in groups in the sea and some were sheltering in the marina area.  Occasionally some would fly from one spot to the other when swimming seemed like it would take too long!  From where I was, it did look as if they might get in each other’s way but I guess that is just the effect of distance on my perspective.

As we walked back along the seafront, a few of them took off from the sea and headed towards the boating lake.  They were flying straight towards us at one point (although I failed to get a good focus on them so those shots were wasted) but then turned inland to head to the lake.  The sound the swans make as they beat their wings is quite noticeable.  If we didn’t have things to do, I could have spent ages watching them.