Nesting Swans

hmboards

There are a pair of swans nesting near where I work. The pen laid 8 eggs, and one hatched just over a week ago.





Sadly the signet didn't make it past the second night. Strangely neither the pen or cob made any effort to move the dead signet off the nest for several days. The pen is still sitting on the nest. Is it likely any more signets will hatch at this stage, over a week since the first ?

More photos here

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Over a week later? Highly unlikely.

hmboards

Denver Fat Sewage wrote:

Over a week later? Highly unlikely.

It seems she doesn't know when to give up. It's been 11 days since the first hatched now and the pen is still on the nest.

hmboards

Update - they gave up on the eggs over the weekend. That's over a five weeks since the first hatched. Over that time they have been continuously patching up the nest and never leaving the eggs unattended.

littlebug

that's so sad

Why would the eggs not have hatched and why would that one sygnet not make it?

RedorDead

Better news over in Chapelizod with our swans.

3 Cygnets hatched this week. Think there may have been 4 eggs though. Got worried a few weeks ago as both parents seemed to have abandoned the eggs in the nest.

They are so cute!!

Sorry pics are a little dark, taken at dusk.

hmboards

Normally not all the eggs will hatch. Last year 4 out of 7 hatched. Three of the sygnets survived, the fourth may have been lost to a predator. The year before that they had similar results. I'm not sure what went wrong this year. The sygnet that hatched never even made it as far as the water. It was moving about on the nest the first day, but was dead the following morning. So it wasn't a predator that got it. Perhaps it was accidentally smothered, or may have simply been too weak.

That's good they are having better luck in Chapelizod. I've heard that there's a pair of swans with 7 sygnets on the canal near Clondalkin.