Day before yesterday we were biking home from the lotty and when we got to the little bridge by the clubhouse I heard all this "peeping" from where the water ends by the dam and pump. I saw six or seven cygnets and no parents, but didn't think much about it and went on home. The next day when I returned in the afternoon as we went over the bridge, I heard the peeping again. I looked and saw no parents with those cygnets, so I stopped and called to my partner that I was going to investigate. If they has been abandoned or the parents killed, we would have to alert the animal shelter because those babies were too young to fend for themselves. As we approached the young ones, we heard the tell-tale "blowing" of an adult. Then we saw them both. They were in the canal on the other side of the dam and of course the little ones wanted to be with their parents. So here are a couple of fotos of the swans, the dam and pump. You can see that someone had made a simple ladder for the birds to climb up to get to land. This dam and pump are present so that we can get rid of water on the complex as it drains out of the plots. The canal where it gets pumped into is higher. That's the way our country is in a nutshell, actually --a series of canals taking the water from the lowest depressions on up to higher land...and finally out into the sea (all via a series of ever larger canals). Here is one of the parents standing guard bp by the dam and pump (which is working...see it?) And here you can see the little cygnets and the adult in the higher canal. Perhaps you can notice the difference in water levels.
I think swans are the most graceful fowls in the world .They are so very gorgeous.Thank you Sjoerd for the post.
I hope the cygnets found the ladder and were able to rejoin their parents. Have you seen the family together?
Not anymore... they have disappeared now. Thosebireds come and go...travelling miles in the interconnecting canals.
