Mother swan with her nine eggs.

The Feast Day of Saint Pius V.
It has been a great joy to see the swan parents on our part of the canal lovingly mate, build their nest and then the mother swan sit there diligently in all weathers on the eggs. It felt amazing to see all nine beautifully formed swan eggs. You can see only eight in the shot as she is covering one of the eggs, that are about the size of large goose eggs. I hope the cygnets all survive and thrive when they hatch out. It is concerning how much litter surrounds the nest. The people who clean up litter tend to  clean up along the tow path and this nest is quite hard to reach, being near a dry stone wall on the opposite side of the canal tow path. 
It is a cold drizzly morning and 10c.
We are having a quiet morning reading the paper and the church bells are ringing for the 10:30am service at the parish church.
April has flown.
Enjoy your Sunday blip friends and thanks for kind comments.