A nest and a swan song on the river

I was at the wheel of my boat, steering round a bend in the river. A small island appeared up ahead with a couple of willow trees and an odd object on its shoreline — a brown mound capped with white, like an enormous bun with icing on it. 

It took me a couple of seconds to realise it was a swan’s nest on which the brooding swan had fallen fast asleep. I got closer and saw that the nest was over a metre in diameter and made of dead reeds. The swan didn’t wake up.

Swans lay an average of four eggs which take about 36 days to hatch. Behind these statistics lie some more interesting facts. A female swan, or pen, will have her first clutch when she’s three to five years old and it will be below the average number of eggs, often only one or two. Then, each year, as she matures and the parenting skills of herself and her mate increase, the clutch size will grow, eventually reaching seven or even eight.