Tales from the Riverbank " Mute Swans " by Chris Beever

 

Tales from the Riverbank by Chris Beever 

Sarah & Billy the Mute Swan’s


Another fine although very wet July morning greeted me as I quickly brought in the milk delivered by jack the milkman (why do all milk men whistle?) much to the pleasure of the next door cat who was waiting with twisting tail on the offchance i would be sharing my creamy pint "not a chance ".

Probably like most of the towns in Lancashire it’s a compulsory act in my area to rescue your milk as soon as possible before either the local cat licks the top knocking the bottle over and commences to play spin the bottle or the local blue tit population swoop down in there squadrons to pinch all the cream from the top of our milk by cleverly prizing open the foil cap to get at the bounty underneath, then annoyingly leaving the bottle top wide open for all manner of creepy crawlies to take a bath in your pint of white gold, as I have found to my cost when I had downed my daily pint of healthy stuff only to find a woodlouse had been swimming in it yuck!.

After a nice mug of tea and with the cracking usual fry up still working its way slowly down to my toes, I once again headed out for another wander along the river bank just outside of Rufford nr Southport.

My mission on this day was to catch up with my royal friends Sarah & Billy to see if they had managed to bring there over due young family into the fold of the river bank community, thoughts of previous visits to Sarah and Billy’s pad crossed my mind when I had cause to shout at sly old red the fox when he attempted to swipe one of the young clutch, much to the annoyance of Billy who joined me in the cause to stop one of his unborn family being eaten.

After a nice steady walk through countless sticky cobwebs and the odd niggle from the nettles that seem to penetrate any type of clothing in all the wrong places, i reached the river to find my usual friends getting on with there usual morning ritual of finding breakfast.

I stood silently and watched as the local barn owl quartered the nearby field back and forth in search of his next meal of unwary field vole, and yes I know you have heard me say this before but I found myself thinking that there’s nothing quite like the river in the early morning.

On reaching the royal residence I could see that there had been some new arrivals on the riverbank, I looked over towards Sarah and Billy’s home to see that the six pearly white dinosaur like eggs had been cracked open, “but where are the young uns” I thought.

As we waited for Sarah and Billy to come back home we spent an enjoyable couple of hours watching the goings on around the river, I watched as a shoal of fish swirled around in the rivers current occasionally jumping up out of the water in a bid to escape the hunting pike and found myself being constantly distracted by the countless neon coloured dragon flies that where using my camera tripod as a hunting viewpoint, at one point I must admit that I had to make room for a massive brown helicopter size dragonfly that seemed to smile at me as though to say “do I scare you” to which I thought please don’t come any closer.

After loosing the usual pint of blood to the ferocious female midge’s the royal precession finally arrived with Billy in the lead head held high, and Sarah taking up the rear with her feathers puffed out proud as punch and the kids in the middle trying there best to keep in the regimented line.

The royal precession made there way towards our part of the river, and if I didn’t know any better I would say that the local jenny wrens and the rest of the river bank community where giving them an early morning fanfare.
After a short period of Billy showing me whose boss by getting out and standing at the side of me with his wings stretched out and an aggressive hiss that would be worthy of any king cobra causing me to once again find the nettles, the big white prince accepted that i was not going to cause any harm to his new arrivals and the whole family joined me for a spot of dinner.

After lunch and after asking the parents permission the whole family joined us for a bit of a morning photo shoot and mum Sarah was only too pleased to guide her little ones in front of me so that I could get a close-up of the cute little characters.

Billy on the other hand was too transfixed by the local mallards that where pushing there luck by swimming too close to the young brood much to the annoyance of Billy who let out a loud noise that sounded like a record being scratched.

After the usuaul memory card full of photos Billy decided that enough was enough and grunted at his family to get in line, after a long look back to make sure everyone was present and correct Billy directed the family off into the main flow of the river and i watched as they drifted away until they where mere specks on the horizon.

The mute swan is an elegant bird that most folk take for granted but watching these majestic large birds in there family groups can make you think how much alike we are, the next time you see a group of swans make a little stop to see what they get up to and be excited by the fact that you are in the presence of royalty.

There are no tricks of the trade for mute swans as you can find them easily near any open water, so here are a few interesting mute swan facts to look at.

 

Did You Know?

Mute swans can live up to 20 years and often stay with the same partner throughout there lifetime although some males choose to have four partners on the go at the same time “must have plenty of money”.

Swans are mainly vegetarian but they do often eat small fish and insects, it has even been said that they have been witnessed eating frogs “yuk”.


Swans where (although I think royalty would choose to forget it) on the menu at all the posh royal dinner tables in the 18th century and if a swan was eaten by anyone other than royalty, the culprit would be given up to seven years hard labour.


The name Mute is given to this breed of swan as unlike the other species they make little noise, but they do often make loud hissing noises when harassed or generally grumpy, they do also make a sort of gulping noise as though they have just swallowed an apple.


Mute Swans can fly at an astonishing speed for such a big bird and they have been recorded travelling up to 55mph.


When landing a swan uses its large webbed feet as water skis to slow it down.


Male swans are called cobs and female swans are called pens.