Turning the eggs

No cygnets yet, but we did see proof that there were eggs today. The female swan must get very bored spending so much time on the nest. Sometimes she rearranges the twigs, or stretches out to add new ones. The male swan spent most of his time at the outflow end of the pond, possibly trying to keep the pair of Canada geese at bay, although they didn't seem at all put out by his displays of aggression with raised wings.

Otherwise there were a few moorhens and coots, with one coot visiting the old nest site at the end of the island, but didn't seem to be sitting. No tufted ducks today, but quite a lot of male mallards and a couple of females, herring gulls of course and the odd black-headed gull, also the usual jackdaws, magpies and wood pigeons.

We met someone who is currently spending her time seeking out cygnets throughout Edinburgh on the various ponds and the canal. She gets bored with them when they are a month old, which is probably a good thing as it would be hard to keep up for long.