Lake Mary Nell is Home to Six Cygnets and Friends

Despite how deserted campus is of its students, there is still so much life and so many new members of the Elon family.

I went down to Lake Mary Nell today to see the baby cygnets and their mother at their new home, and I found far more than I imagined I would.

First I came across, not the cygnets and their mother, but a whole family of baby geese with their mother. Who knew that so many birthdays would happen at once!

One of the most precious moments was when a squirrel sat right next to one of the baby geese and munched on its own piece of food as the baby goose picked at the grass. It was so typically Elon - a squirrel just making new friends with baby geese.

Across the lake, near the fine arts center, I saw a whole gaggle of geese. And just to the left of them was my favorite family of swans.


When I approached the edge of the lake, I couldn't help but think the mother swan kept looking at me from the corner of her eye.

She and her six baby swans moved from their nest to Lake Mary Nell. Sadly, the seventh egg remains behind in the nest, unhatched.

Mother and babies spent their afternoon near a feeding box. Mommy would reach her neck into the box, grab some bits of food and drop them into the water for her babies to eat.

They scramble around her to grab them as she dunks her head underwater to rescue the food that's sunk.

As she moves toward the little ramp leading up to the box, her babies inch behind her and try to get up but are still too small to make it just yet.

Each cygnet never strayed too far from its siblings, and they all stayed very close to their loving mother.