Last weekend, on my way to the London Wetland Centre, I stopped off at the pond in the centre of Barnes in order to look at a pair of Mute swans and their 5 large cygnets. I think it is usually mum in front, with the cygnets following, and dad bringing up the rear. In the photo below, the swan at the back of the group is just having a drink.
The light is not too good in the photo below, but you will see that one cygnet is white, while the other four siblings are much darker.
The large white cygnet is being followed by a large grey cygnet. Just look at their downy feathers!
Someone said that one of the cygnets may be white because it may be the oldest. I don't know if this could be so or not. In the photograph below they are all floating around in the water together.
After a while, a Canada Goose must have been in the way because it got chased off by one of the parent swans. Unfortunately, I missed taking a photo of the swan in action, but the goose is definitely moving at a fast pace in order to get away. A Mallard duck in the middle of the group ignored the situation and kept on swimming in the opposite direction.
I think it must be mum, now in the distance, who chased off the Canada goose, whose rear end can just be seen at the right in the photograph below. The Mallard is still swimming purposefully across the group, while dad (probably) is checking that all the cygnets are on the move.
They eventually swam off to a corner of the pond and hid from sight, but before that I managed to get my usual bird view - their backs!
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