No Place for the Weans

Poor swan. She's been sitting on this nest over her clutch of eggs for a couple of weeks now. There's at least six eggs in there this year which is up on previous years.

There have been swans on the local pond here since the 1930s, with only a three years gap between 2004-2007 when the adults flew off to find a less disruptive place to stay. Thankfully a pair returned and this has also brought back a few Mallards and Water Hens too. Despite being stuck in the middle of the village and having lots of human traffic passing the birds are generally left alone and most of the locals are very protective of them. Unfortunately this nesting platform is positioned very near to where groups of teenagers regularly get a bit rowdy over a cheeky Buckfast Tonic Wine and it would seem that much of their litter is being chucked over the fence and into this area of the pond. In the big version you can probably make out the ubiquitous Bucky bottle near the pen on her nest. The worrying thing is that this looks like it's been thrown over that way as most of the other rubbish is washed up on the edges.

One silver lining though is that tomorrow there's a big community clean up planned for around the pond area. So, along with the Army Cadets and some willing volunteers we'll spend a few hours dragging out the traffic cones, shopping trolleys and bikes from here and hopefully turn this nursery into something the cygnets can paddle around safely in a couple of weeks time.