The Swan Uppers completed their five day annual census of swans in Abingdon-on-Thames this afternoon.
They caught a swan and 5 cygnets off Wilsham Road in Abingdon.
Swan Upping is partly ceremonial and partly scientific. Swans are rounded up, caught, marked, and then released.
There were more swans on the Thames this year than last.
The ceremonial part ended at Abingdon Bridge with a toast to ‘The Queen’.
The Mayday Bank Holiday weekend began with a slight frost. Mist floated over the water of the River Thames, below Abingdon Bridge.
On the Market Place the 10th Abingdon (St Helen’s) Scout Group had a table top sale.
Last weekend the district scouts held a St George’s Day parade at the European School in Culham. Gone are the days when there is a parade in Abingdon every year since the merger of Abingdon District and Didcot District in April 2012.
There were two buskers on the Bury Street Shopping Centre, one playing the lute, and the other the flute.
As the day progressed people looked up to the skies at the roar of aircraft arriving, or practising for the 2014 Abingdon Air and Country Show. It is at Dalton Barracks, tomorrow (May 4th).
Members of Abingdon Rowing Club were working in the early hours making preparations, then welcoming and helping crews, for the 2014 Abingdon Head of the River rowing time trials.
Rye Farm Meadow, where boats were brought, is still soft in patches having been under water a lot of the winter.
The first of 4 divisions left the meadow before 9am to row downstream to the start near Culham weir. There were up to 90 boats in each division.
Then at 9:30, 11:45, 14:00, and 16:15 boats raced upstream the 2000 metres to the finishing post, opposite Ferry Boat House on Wilsham Road.
On the same day as the University Boat Race, which Oxford were to win, rowers gave their all.
At Rye Farm Meadow where crews embarked and disembarked there was beer, homemade cakes, a BBQ, and entertainment by the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers.
More pictures on Abingdon Blog Facebook.
A bottle of water taken at the source of the River Thames in Gloucestershire is being carried by a relay of walkers, swimmers, kayakers, rowers, and sailors to the city of London then out to sea. The relay began on September 1st and will finish on September 15th.
Today, the bottle was brought to Abingdon by Arwyn, a 1960’s electric powered sailing boat, on behalf of the Electric Boat Association, and the Abbey Sailing Club – which celebrates 80 years in 2013.
The Abingdon lock keeper is on holiday this week, and so the relief lock keeper will keep the bottle overnight and entrust it to the rowers tomorrow. Both Abingdon Rowing Club and the City of Oxford Rowing Club will speed the bottle as far as Benson Lock.
This is part of the Thames Festival, celebrating the iconic River Thames.