Author Description

This book begins dramatically - a flight of eight mute swans occupying the entire width of the second floor level of a busy street in the centre of Edinburgh, bringing traffic to a halt. In England all mute swans belong to the Crown - in Scotland they are wild and of three varieties - the mute, the whooper swan and the Bewick swan. The author of this book has observed them all - the mute pair on a man-made pond that successfully raises eight cygnets year in and year out, the pair which valliantly tried three times to rear their young on a remote Highland loch, only to lose even the sole survivor and the gathering of 3000 whoopers on Loch Eyre in 1989 when there was unprecedented pondweed growth.