Our loch is a rather insignificant affair, nestling at the back of the house. It was fringed by a strong growth of reeds. I say was fringed, because over the last two months we have had a resident pair of whooper swans on the loch and their favourite food seems to be reed tubers. Getting at the tubers is quite a laborious affair, so nearly every daylight hour is spent upended as they root about on the bottom, only occasionally coming up for air. One of the pair seems better at upending, as it grazes almost perfectly still. the other waves its legs in the air in a rather ungainly fashion. It might just be the female and thus slightly smaller than the male, so not quite able to upend to the required depth. The resident pair are often joined by a number of other swans – a group of five seems to visit most often, but another pair were on the loch as it got dark. The resident pair never seem to be aggressive towards the visitors. But i have noticed that they stay firmly in the shallows leaving the centre of the loch to the visitors. Maybe the feeding is better on the fringes. Whenever another group appears, it is signalled by the haunting trumpeting call of the whooper swan which is alleged to be where swan song comes from, as dying swans are supposed to make the haunting call. At present it certainly is the swan song for the reeds.