It's all about cuteness tonight...

After dinner, I thought I'd check on the Mute Swan couple to see if their babies had hatched. When I arrived at the small pond, I was disappointed to see an empty nest with two very large eggs on it. Something must have gone wrong because the couple was no where in sight. Then I looked up again and mama and papa slid gracefully from around the bend...and five little cygnets followed behind!




They were about 25 feet from the shore, so I went to the water's edge and sat very still hoping they would swim over to their nest. After almost 15 minutes, they started working their way over, and mama led them right into the little cove where their nest was hidden! The water was shallow and thick with algae, and she started rocking back and forth using her feet to churn up the algae and mud. The babies were rocked around a bit in the turbulence, but they seemed to be having fun and were getting very dirty in the process. It was exciting to watch. It looked like they were taking a great big mud bath, but my guess is mama was helping bring algae to the surface to make it easier for the babies to eat.

Click to enlarge for a better view of the messy little cygnet (you could almost 

put a little bowl on this one's head and pretend the algae was spaghetti).

After another five minutes or so, they slid back out to the open water, stopping to take little baths along the way to wash the mud and algae from their down and feathers.