This year Lakeside Cottage is putting on its own version of Swan Lake!

We think it is quite a lovely story -

At the beginning of the year we had a single mute swan visit our lake. The first time it stayed for a month, the second time it stayed for a couple of weeks, it then flew away but kept returning for visits which eventually became so regular that it arrived each day but flew off again each evening, we knew not where! It seemed totally unbelievable to us when, on the evening of the Royal Wedding - April 29th - a second swan flew in!

They greeted each other with their swan ‘neck-dance’, wriggling and curling into the famous heart shape. We had thought the original swan to be male but soon discovered it to be the female (pen) and the new arrival the male (cob). Katie and Wills Swan (how could we name them anything else!) spent the next ten days neck-dancing and mating and building nests - three nests, in fact, to choose just one, decimating our reed beds in the process! Then Katie began to lay eggs. To date there are six eggs in the nest and Katie is now so busy incubating them that she will rarely be tempted off the nest for food. We shall never know whether they were already a pair and that when she flew off each evening it was to go back to her mate.

The selection of wildlife here is amazing, we love seeing the young birds and chicks just hatched but to watch these beautiful and graceful mute swans nesting is just so exciting - we have learned that the incubation period is approximately 35 days so we are now counting down in anticipation!