Baby Swans in the Sunshine

Yesterday we had a lovely day out on the South Coast.  We visited Abbotsbury, a beautiful village full of chocolate box style cottages and if you follow the road towards the sea you arrive at the Swannery. 

 

The Swannery was established by Benedictine Monks who built a monastery at Abbotsbury during the 1040's. The monks farmed the swans to produce food for their lavish Dorset banquets.  Nowadays the swannery is a sanctuary, the swans are all free flying, there are no cages.

Apparently this is the only place in the world where you are able to walk through the heart of a colony of nesting Mute Swans.

They were beautiful.  The first cygnets were born on the 16th May this year, and yesterday we saw lots of them.  There were plenty of swans still nesting on eggs, and we did catch a glimpse of eggs being turned by the Mummy swans.

 



The children had great fun, we were there at 12noon and the children joined in with the feeding of the swans.  It was an amazing sight, the water was full of swans and the children used scoops to throw them the feed while one of the workers at the Swannery explained all about them.

We sat and had our picnic near a field full of lambs and sheep.  We enjoyed our Cheese and Pancetta Muffins!  They were yummy! I love picnics at this time of year and we used our new Joules Picnic Rug my brother and sister-in-law gave us for Christmas.

 

After lunch we walked along the footpath for about 1/2mile towards the children's farm.  We bought a combined family ticket to the Swannery which allowed us unlimited access to the Swannery yesterday and also a visit to the Children's farm and the Sub Tropical gardens.  These tickets could be used at any other time but we choose to use the children's farm tickets yesterday while the weather was so nice.

 

We were a little disappointed with the farm if I'm honest.  There wasn't much for the children to do, it would have been ideal if they had been toddler age!  However, they went on a pony ride and enjoyed playing on the play equipment, before we walked back down the hill to the Swannery and the car.

 

 

Then we drove along the coast to Portland Bill and enjoyed an ice cream by the lighthouse before heading into Weymouth for a Fish and Chip tea!  A lovely summers day out again, before back to work and school tomorrow, as half term is now over, roll on the summer holidays.

 

The sea was wonderful - next stop France!