The swan that we have been feeding over the last two years was found shot through the head and left on a bridge crossing the canal at the junction of the River Calder. I also saw another bird in the canal that looked like a Cormorant so I think they shot one of them as well.
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Took Horace for his walk the other day while Louise looked after Oliver.
I took him to usual route along the canal side and up to the lock, I decided to take him the long route back along the river side, As we were walking along the path I noticed a load of white feathers on the path I had a good look round but didn’t see anything, I walked a bit further down the path and noticed a gap in the the grass that lead down to the river this was also covered in feathers, I walked a bit further and came across another gap in the grass, I had a look and saw a dead swan I jumped down for a closer look to see if I could identify the swan, To me it looked like a one and a half year old swan, I couldn’t see any other swans about. Today when I took Horace for his walk again I decided to go along the Greenway, when we got to the bridge I looked over at the river and saw some swans, So I cut down the side of the bridge and onto the riverside, The swans are to ones we have been feeding for the last two years and have become quite attached to them, I got to the riverside and the swans came up to me there was only 5 of the 6 cygnets they had left and the mother swan was nowhere to be seen, So it is more than likely that the dead swan was the mother swan. I looked for her tag but couldn’t find it, it was on her left leg but it isn’t there now. I will keep looking for it though.The last photo is them on the 4th May when we first saw them with this years cygnets. Over the last couple of months or so we have noticed that the male swan we were feeding last year was all alone and in a bit of a strop, He was chasing anything away that was on the same patch of river as him, We did wonder what was up with him. Today though we found out as we were walking Horace today we saw him and his partner and they had 6 cygnets with them, We were so pleased to see them and I’m sure they recognise us from last year as they came right up to us and didn’t seem too concerned about us or Horace, We didn’t have any bread for them today but we will take some tomorrow. We didn’t take our cameras either so I had to get some shots with my iPhone.
Last year they had three cygnets and only one survived we are not sure what happened to the other two, lets hope that these all survive. Well it is bad news, the swans we saw on Saturday are the swans we have been feeding the last few months, So yes they have lost 2 of their cygnets, They looked better today but still a little sad, the mother swan was looking around as if she was expecting the lost cygnets to come back.
We where hoping that they had paired up with other swans but Louise did some searching and found out that the young swans can stay with their parents for about 2 years. We think we have had some bad news today, The swans we have been feeding over the last six months or so and then watching them nesting and having three cygnets, Well we haven’t seen them for about two weeks. Then today we saw two swans and a cygnet on the canal, When we got to them we looked at the ring number and we think it read Y126 which is the number of the female swan we have been feeding, but they didn’t react the same as they have done in the past in-fact they didn’t look very well at all and what’s worse is that they only had one cygnet with them, so that means they must of lost two off them,we had got really attached to the swans so this has upset us both. We are hoping we will see them tomorrow and we will check the number again just to make sure.
The photo top left was taken on the 24/5/08 and was one of the cygnets first outings, The photo top right was taken on the 22/6/08 and the last one of them all together, The bottom two photos where taken today, the female swan and her remaining cygnet. Just been on our walk with Horace, The swans cygnets are doing fine, They are difficult to take photos of by them selves, A bit too active and still a bit clingy but I did manage to get this shot. The male swan was a bit protective of his territory today, I managed to get a bit of video of it. Moments before this he chased off what we thought was a fish.Click on the image to see the video. Over the last 3 days the swans have not been around their nest, We thought that they might have moved away but this morning on our walk with Horace they were on their nest. This evening they were not too far from the nest, We managed to feed them and I got some more photos, This one being the best one. The swans have been swimming about with their cygnets this week, Louise has got some good video footage of them, Over the next week we will edit all the best bits together and then put them up here in the video pages in the mean time you can view some photos I have taken of the cygnets in the photography pages. When walking Horace yesterday we saw the new cygnets in the nest, Today we watched them for about half an hour, I managed to get a photograph of them, I have a Lumix FX30 and a small pair of binoculars so I put the camera in macro mode and zoomed in and put the binoculars up to the lens, It was a bit difficult to keep steady but I did manage to get this shot. Aren't they cute. I will be taking the video camera with me this evening, Lets hope they are out again.
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