Fluffy white and normal colour juvenile cygnets on Barnes pond

Towards the end of June my camera and I went on a train from Vauxhall station to Barnes Bridge.  I walked through Barnes village on my way to the Barnes Wetland Centre.  In the centre of Barnes there is a pond.  On the pond was a family of Mute swans - two adults and five juvenile cygnets.  There were three white cygnets and two brown cygnets (the usual colour of cygnets).

Here an adult swan is in a bit of a flap behind 1 brown and 2 white fluffy cygnets.

Two of the lighter coloured cygnets were swimming in a line.

It was bath time, so all the cygnets were looking a little scraggy.

The more normal coloured cygnet is in the front of this photograph.

After I had been to the Wetland Centre, I walked past Barnes pond again on my way back to the station.  The cygnets had dried off by this time and were looking a little fluffier.

Last year the Barnes pond swans also had a couple of white cygnets as well as the normal light brown cygnets.

I believe that white cygnets are called "Polish" mute swans.  I took the following information from the internet:

The polish mute swan is a ‘pure white’ version of a mute swan. The legs and feet are a pinkish-grey colour instead of the usual black colour.  A pigment deficiency of a gene in the sex chromosomes is what causes the whiteness.

When a female mute swan inherits only one melanin-deficient chromosome she will be a polish swan, whereas the male of the same parents will be normal. If the next generation is produced by two of their offspring the brood will contain numbers of both polish and normal cygnets of either sex.

Polish swans were given their name when they were imported from the Polish coast on the Baltic sea into London around about 1800. Mistakenly thought to be a new species they were given the name ‘Cygnus immutabilis’ (changeless swan).

Polish swans are not a different species of swan, because they are mute swans.

Progress of the Barnes pond cygnets - July/November

I like visiting the Barnes Wetland Centre, but do not manage to go there as often as I would like.  On my way there in early July I stopped off at Barnes village pond and took some photographs of the swan family there.  There were four fluffy grey cygnets and one white fluffy cygnet, together with their parents.  There are more photographs of the swan family in one of my previous posts.

The photograph of two contrasting cygnets was taken on my way to the Wetlands at about lunch time.

The photograph of two contrasting cygnets eating grass near the pond was taken on my way back to Barnes Bridge station in the late afternoon.  I love their little fluffy wings.

It was a sunny day yesterday so I decided to go over to Barnes again, but I did not manage to leave the flat until mid-day and, therefore, arrived in Barnes later than I had planned.  The swan family were swimming over to the side of the village pond and I managed to take some photographs of them.  It was about four months since my last visit to the pond in Barnes and there were only three cygnets altogether, instead of five.

A parent mute swan got out of the water and flapped its wings and seems to have a large leaf stuck to its tummy.  I do not know enough about swans to know if this is the male or the female.  It looks very large in this photo, so I am guessing that it might be dad.  There are two brown/white patchy cygnets and one pure white one, so I was pleased to see that the pure white cygnet had survived.

This is a photograph of one of the "normal" coloured cygnets.

In this photograph there is a cygnet with the normal brown and white markings and the pure white cygnet.

This is the other brown and white cygnet.

The white cygnet looks just like its parents, except that the beak is a lighter colour.

The swan family swam over to the other side of the pond, where a young family was feeding the other ducks, black-headed gulls and pigeons.  The swans were very keen to join in.

It was pandemonium!  The black-headed gulls were flying everywhere, but the swans and cygnets were being very patient.  In this photograph, the white cygnet is next to a parent - so the contrast in the colour of the beaks can be clearly seen - and, of course, it is still much smaller than a fully-grown swan.  The cygnets are now nearly there though!

1 white and 4 grey cygnets in Barnes

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!

I am still intrigued as to the reason why one of the cygnets is white.  Can anyone help me on this?