Rhonda Bracey: At Random

There are always black swans on the estuary close to us, but a couple of times a year there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. These mass congregations seem to be about September and April, and are possibly related to nesting/mating and hatching seasons, though I haven’t confirmed this. Mostly, the congregations are well out in the middle of estuary, but this year I’ve seen quite a few swans reasonably close to shore when I’ve driven into town (the road hugs the estuary for much of the way).

And for the first time, I’ve even seen one (twice) on the other side of the road, near a natural (?) pond with bulrushes right next to a house. I suspect this bird is nesting there, though waddling across the road would be fraught with danger.

Here are some photos I took with my phone the other day on my drive back home from the shops. None of the birds was really close to shore, but it was such a nice day and the estuary was looking so good, I wanted to take some photos! The black dots in the background are some of the swans — this is where they normally hang out. The estuary is about 20 km long, and there are swans along the whole length of it, so these pictures are only a tiny snapshot of some of the swans.