Amazing swan mating dance captured
DUNDALK amateur photographer Margaret Hoey was thrilled to capture one of the most amazing spectacles in nature - the ritual mating dance of swans - when she was out and about with her camera at the weekend.
‘I was at a local lake when I saw the two swans swimming together and started taking photographs of them,’ says Margaret.
‘It was amazing, so graceful and beautiful that I was almost in tears watching them.’
‘I had never seen anything like it before and it was only when I went home and looked it up on the internet, did I discover how lucky I was to see the swan courtship dance.’
The Dundalk woman, who has developed an interest in photography after attending a course with Dundalk Photographic Society, says that it was like watching a nature programme as the swans performed their synchronised mating ritual.
‘It was a wonderful thing to see and I was so lucky that I had my camera with me,’ says Margaret who now knows the thrill which David Attenborough gets when making his famous wild life films.
Swans mate for life and once their courtship dance is complete, they will raise their clutch of cygnets together. Unlike most other birds, both male(cob) and female (pen) swans share the parenting duties, with the male helping to build the nest. The spend six to nine months with their cygnets, ensuring that they are fit to look after themselves.