early morning swan action

heya

not so long ago i had, early on one morning, perfectly good reason to be outside momentarily (sorry). well, just about (as in) every morning i have such, look you see. the consumption of a cigarette, or smoking, if you will, is something which just doesn't get done indoors no more. so is the world which we created, what did we do it for. 

those of you who have read the title of this post already know, surely, where this is all going, or leading to, but anyway. for the sake of completeness and clarification, yes, it was so that on the particular morning my memories drift towards i saw some swans. quite a few. and certainly it was so i managed to grab, or take, a picture or two. 

is it worth, at this stage, me apologising for the poor quality of the images?presumably yes for anyone new to reading my meandering musings, but then those who have been reading all of this since it started, what, some seventeen or so years ago, are perhaps used to such. anyway, i am pretty sure that you can make out that they are indeed swans, so the image does its job. 

at a glance, then, you might consider me to be some sort of "swan master", with me in some magical way being able to get them to swim (or paddle) up near me. not, so really. i use a reasonably well known cheat for this, which is to have some bread to break up and throw in their direction. not at them, you understand, as hitting a swan sounds mean and silly and would probably get you knacked.

on that note, it was a couple of years ago that a story (and sorry if i have spoken of this) circulated that it was quite naughty to give bread to swans and ducks as doing so made them ill. alas, no. it turned out that this was a mischievous bit of "viral" advertising from somewhat what wished to increase sales of their product, duck food. so yes, go right ahead and feed bread to ducks and swans, but in moderation. 

for ducks do also feature here, as you can kind of make out in the images, and may be able to spot in the above video clip (yes, we've got a video). with some interest i have noted (observed) an increase in the number of ducks around. unsure if this is a seasonal thing, or the start of a swan vs duck turf war. should it be so that a body of water can be the site of a turf war. 

rumours circulate that ducks are considered the "hard men" of the waterways; that they are brutal and violent bullies. going on what i saw, maybe. it is certainly true that swans have a formidable reputation for being able to knack any one or thing what approaches them, but they seemed rather wary of the ducks. sure, there were one to two gestures from a swan (now and then) attempting to shuffle a duck along, but it all seemed, or felt, rather half hearted. 

perhaps i erred, or am in some (small) way at fault, for not bringing quite enough bread to feed all animals what live on the water. well, i could only give what i had, which i did. up to them if they wish to work out a way to share it, or go all 'survival of the fittest' or whatever it was that Dickens or Darwin or them what wrote it actually wrote. 

somewhere around the off-centre middle of that picture you can, i think, see a swan considering telling a duck to f*** off. i believe it is a mallard duck, too, which are notorious (if not infamous) for being the most unforgiving, vicious and brutal of all ducks. should one believe the tales. 

right, well, yes, that's about all i have to say, really. i would imagine, or presume, the pictures and video were of more appeal than my comments. should i make any further such sightings on my travels, yes, i may well document them here. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!