A pair of Black Swans in my neighbourhood has a single cygnet this year. Baby black swans are so cute! An adorable bundle of grey-cream fluff with black beaks, eyes, and legs:

I don’t know how many eggs there were in the brood, nor how many of them hatched. Alas, baby swans are prey to several natural predators, especially hawks and eagles, as well as to introduced animals like dogs, cats, and foxes.

Here’s the baby and one of the adults, in a lovely mellow lighting:

It’s good to see any young swans at all — I didn’t spot any last year. In fact, I watched a pair of swans devotedly tend their nest for eight months without hatching any eggs! It’s possible they were both males, practising their nesting skills together in the absence of any females. I wrote about their vigil in two posts: part 1 and part 2.

So it’s great to see these two adults looking after the little one:

Common name: Black Swan
Scientific name: Cygnus atratus
Approximate length of adult bird: 120 cm
Date spotted: 25 November 2025 (spring)
Approximate location: Sydney’s Northern Beaches, New South Wales, Australia