a fowl valentine's day

after enjoying some heart shaped pancakes with my valentine this morning i opened the blinds and realized that the geese and ducks had some new friends...2 gorgeous swans! after a restless night's sleep due to the crazy honking & quacking water fowl outside i soon realized that all of their excitement must've been centered around a welcome home party for their white feathered friends! since i seem to associate swans with love...today made for the perfect time of their arrival to oceanline drive. at one point, they made their way up onto our dock so i was able to get some close ups of these two love birds (haha). after tirelessly trying to determine which was the cob (male) and which was the pen (female) i decided to do a little googling to find out more about them. my googling informed me that the specific species we have on our pond, the mute swan, can display homosexual or transgender behaviors. ah ha...this is the likely reason behind why i struggled in my attempts to determine who was who. i think it's safe to say that if you're reading this you just learned a fun fact about the mute swan. i know i did :o)