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WILDLIFE

Symbol Of Forever-Love

Mute swans, however, despite their grace and elegance are also aggressive birds. Care to know why?

Josephine Crispin

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The first swan family I encountered, up close, a few years ago by the riverbank of the River Aire at St Aidan’s Nature Reserve in England

I love photographing swans. Like a kid gazing with hopeful anticipation at the display window of a chocolate shop, that is how I feel when I see swans — or mute swans as they are classified.

With questions in my mind like which way to approach the birds or how close to the swan I should be — the excitement is delicious!

The thrill I feel is similar to that of unwrapping a big bag of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

The swan on the left and on the right is one and the same, newly widowed at the time. The father swan in the middle, in flight, is with its big family in the lake consisting of 7 cygnets with the mother swan keeping an eye on their brood. Photos by the author, taken in separate lakes in England.

Swans not only epitomise grace and elegance, they also symbolise love and romance.

Swans engage in a long-term relationship. They are monogamous. They famously pair for life, although divorce is a distant possibility.

Or when a partner dies, the surviving swan eventually looks for another partner.

(This I know to be a fact, having closely monitored a male swan whose partner died, with the male swan taking on another partner after many months. This is for another story.)

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