Lovebirds survive a turbulent year

November 1986

It’s been a mixed year for Mr and Mrs Swan of Bray Harbour.

They’ve moved home several times, tried, unsuccessfully, to have children, and seen their home flooded by the high tide.

But at the end of it all they are still together and in love, so that can’t be too bad!

Now all that might sound like the plot from a bad TV soap opera, but in fact it’s the true life record of what’s been happening to a pair of swans which recently returned to Bray Harbour after an absence of nearly a year.

Thanks to the work of the local branch of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy, there’s a comprehensive record of what the Bray swans have been doing since they flew out of the harbour last spring.

Member Ann McAvoy explained that the detailed research was possible because the pair were ringed by the conservancy earlier this year.

This meant that members have been able to identify the swans - unromantically designed as JH and HH - as they turned up at various locations. In April, they moved to the marsh between Kilcoole and Newcastle where they claimed a territory and built a nest in an inaccessible part of the terrain. Five eggs were laid but sadly these were lost during a high tide and although two replacement eggs were laid as a replacement clutch, these failed to hatch. In late July, JH and HH left Kilcoole and moved to Broadclough near Wicklow Town to join a flock of ninety swans to moult. There they remained until returning to Bray in recent weeks, where they are a very popular attraction for visitors to the harbour. Explaining that swans are true romantics and mate for life, Ann added that she was delighted they had escaped the recent pollution which badly hit so many swans in Dublin.

‘It’s great to see them back in Bray again and let’s home that next year they will have more success in breeding and will bring a family of young swans back with them,’ she said.