On our last day, we were leaving from Heathrow that evening, Kevin and Madeleine took us to the Abbotsbury Swannery. Baby swans were being advertised on numerous sign posts, but we had looked the other way. After all baby swans are ugly ducklings now, aren't they? We had a really marvellous last day.
First of all Abbotsbury is a place well worth visiting, it has many old buildings that we just drove past. Hopefully we will return there one day. The swannery is right on the Fleet with the Chesil Beach clearly visible not too far off. These protected waters must be what made the swans come here in the first place. Many other species of birds are also to be found here.
Originally swans are thought to have come from the Steppes of Eastern Europe, Russia and China, but the current population at Abbotsbury are probably from semi-domesticated birds liberated many centuries ago. It is also believed that they wintered around the coast of Britain and Western Europe even when they were still completely wild. They are not held at the swannery, at least not after the cygnets are big enough to fend for themselves; they return every year because at the swannery they are fed several meals a day. People no longer catch them as a source of food either.
In open waters all swans belong to the Queen, except for these birds at Abbotsbury and some on the Thames. The swans are ringed with different colours to indicate who they belong to.
Because wild swans do not really rear their young in big groups and the cygnets take a while to recognise their own parents, some of them are kept in five pens from which the swans cannot take off. They are given extra cygnets from other parents. This helps keep all the baby swans, also those outside the pens, a lot safer. All swans are allowed to leave in October. Adult swans are known to return the next year expecting to go back into the pens they were in before.
We entered eager to see baby swans, but at first saw only cobs and pens.
A bird on a nest was a step closer.
Baby swans! One has to be careful where one treads!
A peaceful coexistence inside and outside the pen.
To watch swans sifting through water with grasses provides insight into how they feed.
Here one can see the Fleet and the Chesil Beach in the background.
No comments:
Post a Comment