I'd heard that our new arrivals in the village had been on the move. The last few days, the swans have walked their six cygnets across the village cricket pitch and down to the bottom pond. The parent swans tend to move their cygnets away from the nest for various reasons. The parents are here at the ponds all year round, so they might know there's more food at the other pond or they are safe from predators. Also, it will teach the cygnets there is a big wide world out there.
Today, the parent swans decided to walk their offspring back up to their nest on the top pond.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of dirty water near the nest, so they all got covered in black slime. Even though the female swan was dirty herself, she tried to clean the cygnet on her back first. I suspect they will look good again when the slime has dried off.
A couple more cygnets tried to get on mum’s back but they quickly slipped off.