Category Archives: wildlife

Swan Upping 2011

Swan Upping
Many Thanks to Stephen Gray, an artist based in Culham, for this picture of him with his own painting of the Swan Uppers.

Today was the day the Royal census of swans, or Swan Upping, came to Abingdon – the final stop in the journey up the River Thames.

I found them first at Abingdon Sailing Club where they had caught two adult swams and six young.

This has not been a good year for swans – a virus has killed many. The Swan Uppers only found three familes, today : one at Wallingford, another at Clifton Hamden, and this one in Abingdon.
Swan Upping
The swans were weighed and ringed, a spike was extracted from the webbed foot of one of the adults, and then they were released to swim off as if nothing had happened.

The Swan Uppers continued their journey to Abingdon Bridge where they drank the traditional toast to The Queen.

They then went to the Broad Face for more drinks. Once the local brew had lubricated their vocal chords sufficiently the Swan Uppers treated the other people in the pub to a traditional Swan Upping sing song.

My first clear image of a water vole (or rat)

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I have always admired some of the other Abingdon Blogs.

Take Views of the Ock. When that blog started, the blogger was elated after weeks of searching to get an indistinct blurred image of a water vole (I think they are also called water rats). Images got better and better until now the blogger seems able to find them at will, and has gone on to find other creatures like otters.
Signs
Today I saw my first water vole in the Margaret Brown Gardens, then almost immediately I saw five others. They scurried away, one down the riverside, the other five under the lavender.You can just see one cautiously peeping out to see if it is safe yet.
Signs
He / she then came out a bit further…
Signs
Then finally came into full view. My first clear image of a water vole (or is it a rat?). Just to add “Many people, including pest controllers, builders and developers, mistake the endangered water vole for the brown rat and accidentally poison them”

The almost impossible black swan

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Black Swan Outnumbered
More than the usual number of swans can be found waiting near St Helen’s Wharf.

The Swan Uppers – who normally catch and weigh swans as part of the royal swan census in July – would have their hands full if they arrived right now.

The black swan is still there – probably an escapee from a wildlife park and originally from Australia. The odds may look stacked against it but at one time the very thought of a black swan was a way of saying something was almost impossible.

Ice Breakers

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Milder Air
Thanks to Helen P for this picture of swans walking on the river ice

and acting as ice breakers.

And thanks to Bob who sent a picture of coots in an increasingly narrow trench of clear water.

There are signs of milder breezes from the South – as shown by this weather vane down Checker Walk..
Milder Air
It should allow the black swan that has be come a feature near the Margaret Brown Gardens to return to its normal winter feeding ground. It does not seem popular with the white swans.