The great, yearly "Swan Upping"

In my hunt for weird English traditions, I stumbled upon this lovely one that happens every year in July; Swan Upping.

No, it's not a group of people seeing how high they can lob a swan, though I do see some amusement in that if they were fake swans.

Swan Upping is an annual census of the mute swan population on the Thames and surrounding areas. It's all done by hand, with a small flotilla of traditional rowing skiffs taking a five day journey through Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, then to Abingdon and Oxfordshire.

Garbed in the vivid scarlet rowing shirts of the Swan Uppers, the group make their way down the river and catch, weigh and mark all of the swan cygnets (baby swans) that they find, originally as a way of seeing how many of the King's swans were being poached and where, but now it's more for conservation and education.

This years count showed 115 swans on the Thames, which is still down from the 125 counted in 2022, but it's showing an increase from last years 85, so there's progress hooray! Unfortunately they're still finding swans with scars similar to those made by air rifles, pellet guns and catapults, so there's still plenty of educating to be done!

So please remember, mute swans not only belong to the King, but they are an endangered species and are most certainly not for target practice!