Many thanks to the bird ringing crew that arrived on Sunday to help capture and ring our cygnets. There were twice as many bird ringers as cygnets but it takes two per cygnet to do the ringing properly.

We managed to ring 4 out of 5 cygnets, one was a little tinker and managed to escape our clutches. We will have to catch them later.

Over the next few months the cygnets will be moving out of the reserve and with the coloured rings it will be easier for these to be read. Hopefully we will get reports back as to where our cygnets end up. You will notice on the picture above there are rings on both legs, the metal ring has the ‘normal’ ringing number, the coloured ring is for easier recognition from distance.

The youngsters are growing quickly and are looking like proper swans.

I would ask that if you see one of these young swans with the coloured rings in the future please let me know or report it on the BTO website. This data is really useful for monitoring swans activity.