No its not the name of the pub where I had lunch honestly! It has however been a regular at Strumpshaw Fen for the last few months. This species of swan is not resident in this country and in fact comes from Australia and is brought here as an ornamental bird but inevitably some escape to the countryside and they are now found regularly on many bodies of water. It is not thought that they could become resident here as there is too much competition from our native Mute swans.
Although called the Black swan when in flight it can be seen that many of the flight feathers are white and it certainly looks spectacular in good light. This particular bird seems to spend a lot of its time chasing off the regular white swans and appears to be quite happy here at Strumpshaw. In recent years a Black swan spent the winter months on Gillingham marshes on the left hand side of the bypass as you approached Beccles from the west but I believe that bird perished last winter.
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