I see from the royal website, www.royal.gov.uk, that this year’s Swan Upping – the census of the swans on the The River Thames – starts on Monday 19th July, departing from Sunbury Lock and ends at Abingdon, Oxfordshire on Friday 23rd July. That’s us.

There seemed to be a lot of swans on the river this morning in Abingdon. Nothing like the old days of course, before the Canada Geese came and took over, but drifting through Abingdon Bridge I counted about ten.

Once the swans have swum under Abingdon Bridge, they have escaped the clutches of the swan uppers who stop at the bridge.

This mother, with her late clutch of two young ones, was just practising her escape route before next Friday.  She gathered the cygnets together one side of the bridge…

then emerged  safe and sound, unweighed and untagged, on the other side.