Could this be the new Mrs. Swan?
Today at 9:30am while out doing errands, I stopped by Niles Pond to see if I could find my brand new glove, which was lost the morning previously. That Monday, the day after the weekend storm, the mergansers had moved overnight to Niles Pond to escape the wind and waves on the harbor and I had captured footage of Mr. Swan with the Red-breasted Mergansers. Last I saw him, he was alone and circling the pond, plaintively calling.
Just as I got to the spot where filming yesterday I looked up and flying overhead were not one, but two swans! They were flying towards Brace Cove. I hurried back to my car to get cameras, checking all the while to see if the pair would stay at Niles or continue up the coast. They circled back around Niles before landing on the far side of the pond. The large pure white male looks like Mr. Swan and his girlfriend appears to be much younger as she is comparatively smaller and still has some brownish-gray cygnet feathers.
I immediately called my friend Lyn to let her know about the swan pair swimming at her end of the pond. There was a large patch of ice that prevented the swans from coming closer to where she was calling them from shore but we did have a good long look and we both agree it could very well be Mr. Swan (Lyn calls him Poppa Swan and in Rockport he’s known as Buddy).
The pair of swans stayed, feeding on pond vegetation and moving slowly through the icy waters. Swans use their powerful breast muscles in a lifting and lurching movement to break up ice. It takes a great amount of effort to cut a path through the ice and Mr. Swan is much more adept at ice breaking than is his new girlfriend.
By a swan’s second summer (in other words two years of age) it will have lost all the characteristics of an immature. The brown feathers are gradually replaced with the white feathers. The last thing to visibly change is the color of the swan’s bill. A cygnet’s bill is blue/grey changing over the two year period to pinkish and then orange. Swans can breed as early as two years of age although most don’t begin until three years.
I can’t saw with 100 percent certainty that this is Mr. Swan because I didn’t get a close look at the distinguishing marks on his bill however, all signs point in this direction.
Note the young swan’s brownish feathers and greyish-pink bill (left). This tells us that she is not quite two years of age.
Good Morning Gloucester 
A “Mrs. Swan” would be such great news! Please keep us posted!
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Wouldn’t that just be wonderful! She’s very young, but this is the time of year that they mate.
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What a sweet story. Let’s hope it’s a love story. Males don’t do all that well alone.
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Funny but true Paige 🙂
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Thank you for this. I love seeing the swans around my home in Western New York. However,I keep hearing that my State has implemented a plan to exterminate the swans here, saying that they drive out native waterfowl species. I don’t know to what extent this is truly happening here, but you don’t seem to have a similar problem. Any words of wisdom on this subject Ms. Smith?
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Hi Maria,
I am so very sorry to hear that about the swans in your region. I was under the impression that the campaign to save New York’s Mute Swans was successful.
There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that Mute Swans harm the environment or drive out native waterfowl species. In fact, I have witnessed just the opposite, especially during winter months when the swans are feeding on frozen ponds. They pull up vegetation, which is then consumed by the dabbling ducks that can’t go as deeply as can they. The only time I’ve seen a Mute Swan aggressively chase away a native species of waterfowl, a Canadian Goose, was when the swan was nesting. The swan did not bite it or harm the goose in any way, but just let it know that it was not welcome. I have spent many hours filming Mute Swans that are surrounded by a tremendous variety of native waterfowl.
Please write again if you have you’d like. I’ll be editing my short film about swans this winter and perhaps it could be used in a helpful way when completed.
Link to swan petition, but not sure if it is current: http://www.goosewatchnyc.com/#!mute-swan-plan/cnwg
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What a shot and what a great love story! They are showing the song in the swan swim together 🙂 Dave & Kim 🙂
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How nice for Mr. Swan!!! I wonder how they met–swanmatch.com? 🙂
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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This is great news!
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So happy to hear this and see such beautiful pictures!!! Hoe we continue to see the progress!
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