A hundred teenage swans on the lakes

While travelling around the Marsh I am coming across flocks (or technical term is herds) of mute swans, walking around eating kale or cereal in arable fields.

Sometimes at this time of the year there are still family parties sticking together with their brown and white cygnets as well as pairs of mute swans which will mate for life.

If you see a pair of swans on a ditch or on a small lake – you can tell the male from the female by the shape and colour of the bill.

The male has a deeper orange to the bill and a bigger bauble at the base. The male is bigger than the female as well. Test this when you see two swans together and see if you can tell them apart.

It takes a few seasons for the immature swans to begin breeding. They get chased off all the waters by the parent swans in the spring, so on some of the large lakes at Dungeness and parts of the Royal Military Canal you will come across big groups of immature birds (or as I call them ‘teenagers’) sometimes numbering over a hundred – all waiting for the parent birds to finish breeding.

It is accepted that around 1% of the British population winters on Romney Marsh.

For more information contact Owen Leyshon, Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership, telephone 01797 367934, visit www.rmcp.co.uk, or on Twitter @ LeyshonOwen