25th April

After hearing some slightly distressing news, from another regular visitor to the duckponds near Torquay seafront, that there was no sign of the baby ducklings I decided to pop down and take a look. As you can see from this over indulgence of cuteness all six are present and correct, and I spent an enjoyable and occasionally frustrating one and a half to two hours watching and photographing them (frustrating because the little ones move so quickly that as soon as the camera has them in focus they've moved and are out of focus again. My blip for today, 25th April, was of the happy family resting on the pondside.

 Meanwhile Mrs Swan was looking after the nest, standing up every now and then to turn the eggs which are due to hatch in about 2 weeks time. Mr stayed for a while before disappearing down the bank into the little stream, re-emerging a while later further up then taking a short flight from one end of the pond to the other (about 6 or 7 flaps of his wings)

As if getting jealous of the attention being paid to the ducklings this pied wagtail landed on the ground nearby a few times before settling on the bridge railing chirped a couple of times to get my attention, so I snapped a couple of shots, once done he disappeared.