Innocence

These three black swan cygnets are sweet innocent little darlings. Particularly when their pottering activity is compared with the aggression and territorial behaviour being exhibited currently by the adults and juveniles living around them.
I visited the Taylor Dam again this morning, taking with me plenty of bread with which to feed the birds. The same, if not more, nasty behaviour was being exhibited by a number of the swans.
There is a definite pecking order on display with the more senior of the swans making sure they got the bigger share of the bread and chasing off any that dared to challenge them. Actually the juveniles, in many cases, were quite passive and some would hasten to get out of the way of trouble when they spotted the senior swans nearing them.
Of course we are getting into the mating season with much screeching and squawking and flapping of wings and other such activity going on in the shrubs on a small island in the lake. I was not close enough to make any blue movies.... :-(
I moved to a different part of the lake where there were even more swans. And, carefully shepherded by their mother, along came these three little babies. Bless their little fluffy hearts. They were enchanting and came in close to the shore to capture some small pieces of bread. Their parents were on guard and kept any other swans well out of the way. It made my day. I could have stayed there for hours watching them pottering about in the shallow water.
It calls for frequent visits over the next short while in order to observe the progress of these little innocents.