Drama at Yoctangee!

The Feast of the Flowering Moon was this past week-end.  I was up at Lake Erie all week and got back on Friday and my daughter and her family came down on Friday for the week-end to attend the Feast.  I was excited about going down to the park to see if the South Swan pair had their babies yet.

There were a lot of people in the park and paddle boats on the lake.  I saw the North family and their 4 babies swimming.  I hurried over to see if I could see if the nest was empty...It was but I couldn't find the family.  I looked and looked and then realized they were up on the hill.....

I couldn't figure out why they were up there so close to the people???? I saw only one cygnet.  I was a upset because she had 6 eggs....People were trying to pet them and sitting by them to get pictures taken...the people  are lucky he wasn't aggressive...the Male Swan can hurt a human badly if he feels threaten and is protecting his family. The Swans are beautiful but they are wild.

I watched for a while and then found out why they were up on the hill.  The North Swan male would not let them in the water.  He was chasing them up the hill....

He was at the water edge by their nest and the people renting the boats were on that side too. There was a lot of traffic walking past that area to the boats and back.  A strange place to set up if you ask me...Walking on that ledge is dangerous.

He was going after the baby.  

Here he has the baby down on the ground.  He was shaking the baby too.

People came down the hill to chase him away from the baby.

Then he came back and this time he went after the Male of the South nest.

 Here he has chased him into the crowd and attached him.

He is going back down the hill.

 He chased her and the baby around this tree....

Got the baby again...then all of a sudden he stopped and went back into the water to his family.

 The South Swan couple were finally able to relax and destress.

I walked over to her nest and there were two unhatched eggs in the nest...Don't know what happened to the other 3?

The Mallard duck is still sitting on her nest...tucked away in the Swan's nest....

There was another Mallard duck with newly hatched babies.....

She then showed them how to jump into the water....

And they followed one at a time...so cute!

As I was walking back across the park to go home, I saw the North family swimming to the west side on the lake.  I think that all the people and boats had stressed them to the breaking point...

I hope to get down to the park very soon to see how things are...hope the new baby survived...


As soon as I get my pictures organized I will be back blogging about what a wonderful time we had at Lake Erie.....