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Description
Blakeney Birds - Water and WadersThere is no finer sight on English waterways than a family of wild swans serenely and silently gliding across the surface looking for food amongst the reeds and weeds. These two shots were taken at a water drainage canal in the Cley marsh lands next to Blakeney, Norfolk, East Anglia. The swans are the familiar species in Britain, the so-called Mute Swan, Cygnus olor, with that large black knob at the base of the orange-red beak being characteristic of the species. The male swan is known as the cob, the female as the pen, and young are known as cygnets. Despite their name, Mute Swans have a range of vocalisations, that usually encountered by humans being a loud aggressive hissing and snorting if you should approach to closely. Swans can be very aggressive, males being territorial fighters, and both sexes angrily defend their cygnets. In this first shot, the cob has paddled up in front of his pen and cygnet to check me out - look at that eye, and his broadside position across my path sho

Description
Blakeney Birds - Water and WadersThere is no finer sight on English waterways than a family of wild swans serenely and silently gliding across the surface looking for food amongst the reeds and weeds. These two shots were taken at a water drainage canal in the Cley marsh lands next to Blakeney, Norfolk, East Anglia. The swans are the familiar species in Britain, the so-called Mute Swan, Cygnus olor, with that large black knob at the base of the orange-red beak being characteristic of the species. The male swan is known as the cob, the female as the pen, and young are known as cygnets. Despite their name, Mute Swans have a range of vocalisations, that usually encountered by humans being a loud aggressive hissing and snorting if you should approach to closely. Swans can be very aggressive, males being territorial fighters, and both sexes angrily defend their cygnets. In this first shot, the cob has paddled up in front of his pen and cygnet to check me out - look at that eye, and his broadside position across my path sho