Feeding Frenzy

July 29th 2021 0136

Hello all you awesome Readers.

I wanted to do an article that brings out the aww-factor in you! So I shall try to do so, wish me luck.

Food

I don't know if you saw a noise post a few days ago that I made but I basically posted this picture with a few wee words.

I bought some Swan and Duck food from Amazon after doing a wee bit of research. This ingredient list is a blend of what they eat. I see so many people throwing bread for them, which while the people have good intentions is just not what they should be eating. I loved the picture of this as it had a mute swan on the left and a male Mallard duck on the left, both of which I see when I visit the lake in the park.

I did do some research as to what swans and ducks eat and was suitably impressed with this food and also the price. That wee container was £2.09 for the 450g container which is roughly 3 USD, I have now found out that I can get a 2.25 kg tub for £7.29 about ten dollars which is awesome value. So I told the Swan family and all the ducks, that if you-know-who visits I will be getting this food every time I write about them in an article or do posts on noise. After all I think the copyright should belong to them, fairs fair and everything!

Did the food work?

This is the picture of me having arrived at the lake and calling Suzy Swan over for some food. Look at her wake, she really was steam rolling in, and she was doing this with one leg, can you see one leg out of the water. Apparently it is very common for swans to put their leg out of the water, it is a bit like us crossing our legs. They also do it get a bit of sun and warm themselves up, who knew eh!

Who knows how fast she would have been going if she was using two feet! At this point the babies were nowhere to be seen (well actually you can see in the background).

The seagulls knew something was up though, and started hovering around me.

Some of the ducks came towards me, and I spotted Milly and Molly, and well a bit of chismis is coming up, as it seems Molly was fed up waiting. I will show you a picture later on but in the meantime do you think they enjoyed the food?

Let's have a look.

Can you see all the seagulls who were photobombing lol well actually trying to dive in and take the food. The wee cygnets are growing up fast, and I have learnt that when they are old enough they will leave the parents and find another flock to be with. If they don't leave, the parents will forcibly kick them out, sounds like us humans haha.

Why they are called Mute swans

There are seven species of swans. My ones are mute swans and their proper name is Cygnus olor, and just to confuse us they are not mute. They are called mute because they are the quietest of the seven species. They grunt during courtship and mating and they hiss when warding off other birds or humans and dogs! And trust me when those seagulls come bombing in the parent swans did hiss at them.

Their wing span is about 2 - 2.4 meters which is pretty big. These are big birds!

The males are slightly larger than the females. Can you guess what the terms for male and female are?

I knew the male but not the female.

The male is called a Cob and the female is called a Pen.

Hands up any smart arses who knew that?

The picture above shows you Steve the male or Cob on the left while Suzy the female or Pen on the right, can you see the difference in the body size? You can actually see different species of seagulls in that picture too. The eagle eyed amongst you will see the different coloured heads.

They live for around 12 years in the wild so about the same as a dog roughly.

It was fascinating watching them eat and ward off the seagulls, they didn't mind the ducks so much and I will take some videos next time.

What about Milly Molly and Daffy

Well Daffy was no where to be seen, I still think he is acting the drama queen and having a huff somewhere. I did see Molly and this is what I saw...

She gave up on Daffy and is courting David, who is a Mallard duck like Molly is. It is funny with birds that often the most colourful are actually the males. It is the most common mistake people make when seeing Mallard ducks to confuse the males and females.

I will find out from them next time if Milly has got together with Daffy!

Anyways thank you for looking and I hope that was a bit of cuteness to brighten up your day!

Thank you for reading you awesome beautiful people.

Copyright @TengoLoTodo 2021 and yes All Rights Reserved. All images, words and ramblings are from the author unless otherwise stated.

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