One of our local English Newspapers published this article about the swans in front of Maison Porte del Marty. To be honest, we didn’t know a lot about them, we just enjoyed the view of these graceful birds feeding and resting below our house. This article suggested there are around 210 white swans, plus 2 black swans, we did see 2 some months ago but we seem to be down to 1 at the moment. Our local white swans are known as ‘ mute ‘ swans, so very quiet. I looked up Wikipedia to find out about black swans and learnt that they are originally from Western Australia and New Zealand, but in NZ they went the way of the very large Moa bird and were eaten to extinction by the NZ Maori . The black swans we now have in NZ have been imported from Australia. The suggestion in this article is the 2 black swans have escaped from a zoo….. France doesn’t have any regulations like UK where the swans are owned by the Queen / Royalty, up until 1976 they were able to be hunted, but are now a protected species. One of the most graceful photo’s you could desire to have is watching a swan land on the water, or soar past our house under the bridge with the sun shining on their back, it’s a magnificent sight. One of the many reasons we enjoy living in our little piece of paradise
