Our swans (and cygnets) stop by for a photo op at Ashbridge’s

At last! I finally connected with our swan family — Penny, her long-time mate, Tycho, and their two cygnets.

I think the cygnets were hatched around May 21 or 22 — a guesstimate, since I was, sadly, away when it happened. I saw them on May  24, when they were clearly newly hatched, barely able to remain upright standing on the sloping surface of the boat launch ramp at Ashbridge’s Bay.

Of course, I didn’t have any camera with me, as I was just out for a quick spin to see how they were doing, and I didn’t really think the cygnets would be born yet. So, no newborn pictures.

I made repeated tours of the bay and the peninsula over the next few weeks — with my photo gear — trying to get a picture of them while they were still very young. But for some reason, I was never where they were. I did see them quite far out in the bay. Much too far to photograph.

But yesterday afternoon, on a quick pre-dinner spin, I was lucky enough to catch the whole family feeding in the Coatsworth Cut. Finally! Of course, now the little cygnets aren’t so little any more. I reckon they’re about 22 to 24 days old, and growing like the weeds in my garden. (Much faster than I can contend with, that’s for sure.)

They may be three weeks old, but the cygnets are still being fed by their parents. Penny and Tycho put their heads down into the water, nibble at some submerged aquatic vegetation (what the biologists refer to as SAV), and pull it up so the little ones can get it. The slimy green stuff hangs in long strings from the adults’ beaks, making it easily reachable by the young swans. (The cygnets do plunge their necks underwater to grab at a little of the SAV, but Mom and Dad do most of the harvesting, it seems.) It never fails to amaze me what devoted parents the adult swans are. They patiently feed their littles from earliest morning til far into the evening.

The cygnets are still adorable little fluffballs, one a cream colour, the other more taupe. Next year at this time — providing that they survive, of course, and that’s not to be taken for granted — they will be pure white like their parents.

I don’t know why this year “our beauties,” as my friend Egon calls P and T, had only two offspring. Other years our love birds have hatched out many more. In 2009 and 2008, for example, they started with eight cygnets each spring. In both years, only three cygnets survived until the end of the summer, and then fledged in the fall.

I am going to try to find out what could have caused the reduction — fewer eggs laid? more predation in the new nest location?

In the meantime, here’s a family portrait, caught in one of the rare moments when all members of the family actually had their heads above the water line at the same time.

© BCP 2010