They aren't bothered

They are not rare or endangered. Mute swans are year round residents in this part of the UK, indeed, in much of the UK. But they do not need rareness to be special. The elegance. The grace. I can never not look at a swan.

I remember driving around the Reserve with Michael and there was a swan on the track. He looked at us. We looked, from the little 4x4, at him. We inched closer. Was he bothered? He ambled slightly out of the way and we drove around him. On the way back, he was still there. He looked at us, he deigned to look at us. So regal. So sure of himself! We drove around him.

This time, the two were in the water close to the path - the water is higher than I have ever seen it - and when I stopped to film them, they scarcely paid me any mind.

I had gone to the Reserve with Sally from the Badger Trust. I was showing her the sett where I filmed badgers last summer. The badgers have seemed to vary which part of the sett - main, outlier or annex - they have used over the past 18 months. This time they had moved back to the main sett - though there was activity at three other places! - which is near the dilapidated Badger Hide. Or, rather, the Hide was built where the badgers used to be most active. That must have been twenty years ago. Maybe fifteen. Anyway, Sally might be able to get the Hide refurbished... Leanne and I reckon we'd be happy to spend a night there!

Fingers crossed!

Though the County Recorder said that the badgers stopped using the main sett as soon as the Hide was finished. So... even if it is rebuilt, we might not see the badgers there. They, unlike the swans, are bothered.