Sleepy cygnets

I confess to having a little nap this afternoon but I was up before 6.30 and left the house at 6.45 am.
It was looking black over the Aire Valley but bright ahead of me over the St Ives Estate. No deer in the field but no people either. 
Going up Blind Lane I had just stepped into a gateway to photograph horses in a buttercup field when a Mountain biker whizzed by, narrow escape though I like to think he would have seen me!

No Little Owl but there were golfers and cars arriving at the golf club car park but I had Coppice Pond more or less to myself apart from two men fishing.

I sent a friend’s video of the cygnets to granddaughter Eda and her response was ‘More please‘. So I was on a mission again as well as enjoying my early walk. 

Following the one way system I went to the far side of the pond and the geese and goslings were in one of the bays. A new brood of 5 and the pair with the two remaining youngsisters from the first brood which have now grown considerably. The male swan and juvenile were in the water. I fed them all. There was no aggression but I feel the two swans were there to prevent the Geese getting into the water! I filmed them but the youngsters were never still enough for a crisp photograph! 

Thought I was going to miss the cygnets as they had moved towards the middle of the pond as I arrived. I moved to the next bay and took some photos with my zoom of the family out by the island but a video wouldn’t have been possible. 
After a while  the pen started to swim towards me and to my amazement brought the 8 youngsters ashore right at my feet. They all busied themselves preening, including mum and then settled down for a snooze. At one point the pen even went back in the water for a while. When she came back she came right up to me with no sign of aggression so I sat on a damp bench and just enjoyed the joyous scene. 
So hard to choose a shot of these balls of fluff but one had to be my blip even though the flag iris are now in flower at the pond’s edge, (perfect for flower Friday but couldn’t get flower and cygnets in the same shot unlike last week!)
Just had one chat with a lady walking her dog who was worried she might be going the wrong way round, I assured her she wasn’t.

The cold eventually penetrated and I continued my walk up into the woods, without completing the circuit around the pond, on Wendy’s ‘ secret’ path. Something very fast shot out of the wall in front of me but sadly I wasn’t fast enough to identify what it was.

A most enjoyable start to the day and several videos in the bag for Eda.

It has remained dry and sunny but very, very windy for the rest of the day. 
Players quiz tonight to start the Bank Holiday weekend. Don’t think we’ll be going far, if the weather is fine everywhere will be rammed sadly.

Enjoy your weekend everyone, safely.