Winter And The Wild Swans

Wintertime on the flat, limitless fens. Dawn creeps over the bone-hard land, the sun bursts over the horizon like a raking searchlight beam, cutting across the featureless fields. The sparse hedgerows do nothing to impede the cruel, biting wind. Grasses and straggly bushes glisten with frost but the wide, peaty fields are black and lifeless. The few houses and trees are scattered distantly. Yet in that far distance is a horizontal slash of pure white light against the dark earth. 

Or else trudging along a raised riverbank in the thick mist - a distant bugling, perhaps the baying of a pack of foxhounds. A call like the winter wind itself, wild and untameable.

Whooper Swans at Welney

Both the white mirage on the black fen and that ghostly music coming through the mist announce the presence of the wild swans of winter. Whooper and Bewick Swans arriving from 

the high Arctic to winter here in East Anglia, feeding on the sugar-beet tops left on the fields and roosting on the flooded area known as the Ouse Washes. They also supplement their diet with grain provided by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust who along with the RSPB manage The Washes as a bird reserve. 

Part of the heated bird-observatory
(Most of the swans in this shot are Mute Swans which also enjoy a feed!)

The WWT site at Welney is provided with a large heated bird-observatory where visitors can watch the swans being fed both during the day and at evening floodlit feeds. A visitor centre and an excellent cafe are also part of the facility.

Although the Ouse Washes are important for wildfowl they are not primarily a bird reserve; their original purpose was to hold flood water during times of high rainfall and prevent widespread flooding on the rest of the fens. As a result water levels can fluctuate which is less than ideal for the birds - or the wardens who have the job of feeding the swans.....


Mute Swans feeding from the barrow
while Whoopers wait their turn

.......meanwhile an informative commentary is given to visitors. Amongst the amazing facts related was the fact that wild swans have been recorded flying at heights of over 20,000 feet. I'm hoping to make a visit to see the floodlit feed before the winter is out but just in case I don't manage to get there here are a few more photos.

Whooper Swans

Feeding in more normal conditions



Pochard

 Take care.