A surprise

At weekends, I like to walk around a former industrial estate, now an energy park, as it's a good place for the dogs to practice crossing quiet roads and is beautifully landscaped with plenty of wildlife. Other than the occasional vehicle, we only ever see people walking their dogs and one man walking unaccompanied (who we've named Mr Walker).

As we met, many months ago, a man with a dog he described as "nasty," upon spotting them we decided it best to give them a wide berth in the hope that by the time we'd return from our circuit of the park, he'd have returned to his car, which we'd also noted, with his "nasty" dog in tow. The dog looks slow and frail and just seems to sit and watch while the man goes through his exercise routine, yet as much as I hate to stigmatise Staffies, the old boy is never on a lead, so I keep the man's one-word description of his pet in mind whether or not it's fair.

As we turned the corner, just to the left of the shot, fearing we'd meet them despite our efforts at subtle avoidance, we found ourselves face-to-face with the swans, the four little ones following behind. It was quite a surprise, as we've never seen them so far from their pond. With no time to think and not wishing to startle them or the dogs, we calmly crossed the road to take this picture from a safer distance.

The dogs were excellent and didn't make a sound. As two of them are smaller than the adult swans, maybe this shouldn't be surprising; swans are physically threatening beasts, especially when they rear up, which thankfully they didn't feel obliged to on this occasion. I was very relieved that all dogs were on their leads, as one rarely is and regularly hurtles around this corner expecting nothing more exciting than the barrier to be raised. I don't know whether he'd have circled them, barking (as he's done with people), or if he'd have had the good sense to back away and not create a scene. I suspect the latter.

We watched them for a short while, the dogs too, as the delightful family crossed the road and waddled away from us, each of the cygnets falling down the kerb in turn, picking themselves up and trying valiantly to keep up with Mum and Dad. I do hope they've all made it back to the pond safely after their excursion.