After 2 weeks away, I was delighted to see Penny and her new mate Slim back in the river.
They both looked in great condition, obviously been feeding well somewhere.
Penny as usual came over to say hello, but then got down to the serious business of chasing Duke.
Slim again stayed in the background, observing Penny and her obvious command and control of Duke and the area.
After a short while and a few nips at Duke she left him alone and started to bond closely with Slim, they are getting on really well.
As I suspected, she has spent the last month grooming Slim, and showing that she has a home and is strong enough to defend it. Slim is getting a real lesson from a powerful, mature, and established winner ! Sequence of shots shows the days events. They have again departed this evening, but Penny has shown she is keeping an eye on her domain, and like Arnie - she will be back !!
Short vid of penny and Slim getting ready to chase Duke below.
2 comments:
I am so glad to see that Penny has returned ... and still with her new mate, Slim. Poor Duke, chased off again. Our resident pair on the Sankey Canal at Wargrave, Newton-Le-Willows, have been suffering with some sort of respiratory problem, both of them were listless and gaping a lot. Their last male cygnet went downhill very quickly and despite the fact that we took him to a bird sanctuary in Bury, sadly he died a few days later. Fortunately, the last female cygnet has been absolutely fine. Vulcan and Venus have at last shaken off whatever had ailed them and they are now both eating well and swimming and flying again. We wonder how long the remaining cygnet will be tolerated before she is chased off to patters new!
Hi Wendy, nice to hear from you again. I was wondering how your lot were doing. The illness sounds bad and respiratory is distressing for birds. There is always the danger of bird flu of course coming in from the continent.
Would maybe have been worth while finding out exactly what the illness was with a post mortem, as it caused a death.
Good that Venus and Vulcan have recovered and back to normal. Getting rid of the cygnets is usually from October onwards, but sometimes they keep them until the turn of the year. Popeye and Penny learned that by keeping them longer, it prevented other adults from coming in and taking over the territory. Safety in numbers does work for Swans. Roll on springtime!
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