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Description
I hadn't seen this mute swan and her mate all year. Over the past three years that I've been living on the water I've seen her at least once every year, so I was thrilled to see her again - on New Year's Eve, the last possible day of the year for her to keep the streak alive - despite it still being hunting season here. I'm not sure if swans are legal game, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're not occasionally "mistaken" for ducks or geese.

I think the two of them remember me because when I went out on my dock they swam right over. They might just have been hoping that I was going to feed them - which is illegal, incidentally; and not good for them, besides - but I like to believe that, on some level of consciousness, they know me, recognize and remember me. Even when the battery on my camera died, and I had to go back inside to get the spare - during which time they'd started swimming away - when I returned so did they.

As a post script, I haven't seen them since that single, brief appearance on Friday morning; but Sally and I do hope that they return again, sooner rather than later. It was Sally's first sighting of them, and I pray that it won't be her last.

Description
I hadn't seen this mute swan and her mate all year. Over the past three years that I've been living on the water I've seen her at least once every year, so I was thrilled to see her again - on New Year's Eve, the last possible day of the year for her to keep the streak alive - despite it still being hunting season here. I'm not sure if swans are legal game, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're not occasionally "mistaken" for ducks or geese.

I think the two of them remember me because when I went out on my dock they swam right over. They might just have been hoping that I was going to feed them - which is illegal, incidentally; and not good for them, besides - but I like to believe that, on some level of consciousness, they know me, recognize and remember me. Even when the battery on my camera died, and I had to go back inside to get the spare - during which time they'd started swimming away - when I returned so did they.

As a post script, I haven't seen them since that single, brief appearance on Friday morning; but Sally and I do hope that they return again, sooner rather than later. It was Sally's first sighting of them, and I pray that it won't be her last.