25-03-2008, 08:28 PM
Here are two photos of mallard and mute swan families at our local park, North Walls park in Winchester, Hampshire. They are the photos which I tried to enter for the March competition on waterfowl. The photos showd up fine there the first time I checked but when I next went to my post they did not show up. I think that was because I had resized the photos to make them smaller and easier for people to access, and had deleted these smaller versions from my computer once I had uploaded them to the competition thread on your site! I have attached them here as the original full sized photos, which should work OK!
For the interest of anyone on here who likes to know all the facts and figures, here is the breeding history of the swan pair at the park:
2004 - 5 cygnets hatched on 28th May
2005 - 7 cygnets hatched 14th May (3 eggs did not hatch)
2006 - 13 eggs laid and 11 hatched 12th-13th May. One cygnet died.
2007 - 5 eggs laid and all hatched successfully on 23rd-24th May.
The mother duck in the photo is looking proudly at her clutch of 10 ducklings sleeping in a pile on some rocks in the water. Notice that one duckling is dark brown and is actually lying on top of another duckling! A communal sleep heap!
For the interest of anyone on here who likes to know all the facts and figures, here is the breeding history of the swan pair at the park:
2004 - 5 cygnets hatched on 28th May
2005 - 7 cygnets hatched 14th May (3 eggs did not hatch)
2006 - 13 eggs laid and 11 hatched 12th-13th May. One cygnet died.
2007 - 5 eggs laid and all hatched successfully on 23rd-24th May.
The mother duck in the photo is looking proudly at her clutch of 10 ducklings sleeping in a pile on some rocks in the water. Notice that one duckling is dark brown and is actually lying on top of another duckling! A communal sleep heap!