Adieu My Little Cygnets

As we’re such restless souls, we will depart for the Americas in a few hours time. We’re saying goodbye to our lovely new town of Saintes and our home therein, leaving behind Roman ruins, crusty bread, marinated olives, a mind-boggling cheese selection and lovely concerts at the historic Abbaye aux Dames.

By the time we’ll return in a few months, our resident cygnets will be all grown up. But at least continued observations demonstrated health and well being of all the cygnets in our part of the Charente river. Yes, all the cygnets. Since I posted about the possibly crippled cygnet a few days ago, a lot more swanish activity was recorded.

A second swan family with four cygnets now floats down the river, every now and then sporting big, flabby feet draped over their backs. It appears from my observations, which are not statistically significant, that swans are lazy bums, who like to drift hither and fro, hitching a leg crosswise while scanning for tasty greenery.

The original cygnet has matured considerably over the last week, it’s starting to sprout flight feathers and beefing up on its musculature all around.