King Charles III<\/a> \u2013 known as Swan Upping — began Monday on the River Thames to assess their health.<\/p>\nOne of the British monarch\u2019s less-known titles is Seigneur of the Swans \u2014 Lord of the Swans \u2014 and according to ancient lore, he or she owns all members of the mute swan species found in Britain\u2019s open waters.<\/p>\n
Every year, a team of carefully selected oarsmen \u2014 Swan Uppers — are tasked with finding the swans on a stretch of the Thames.<\/p>\n
When a family is spotted, they shout, \u201cAll up!\u201d and the boats quickly surround the birds, marking them and checking for signs of disease or injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives us an indication of what\u2019s going on throughout the country,\u201d said David Barber, who wears a scarlet jacket and a white swan feather in his cap and bears the title of King\u2019s Swan Marker. \u201cIt\u2019s a tradition, but I think it\u2019s serving a very useful purpose as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barber has been leading the event for more than 30 years. He is accompanied by a vet and oarsmen dressed in three colors: red for the king, white for the Worshipful Company of Vintners and blue stripes for the Worshipful Company of Dyers. The last two are medieval London trade guilds that were granted ownership of some Thames swans in the 15th century.<\/p>\n
The census tradition dates to the 12th century, when swans were considered an important food for royal banquets and feasts.<\/p>\n
While swans are now legally protected from hunting, they face threats from disease, pollution, vandalism and cruelty, Barber said.<\/p>\n
Their numbers have declined over the last two years, primarily due to outbreaks of avian flu across Britain, he said, adding that only 86 young swans were found during last year\u2019s Swan Upping, which was 45% fewer than the year before that.<\/p>\n
But Barber appeared positive at the end of the event\u2019s first day, with a total of 16 young swans recorded.<\/p>\n
The census continues until Friday, traveling from Sunbury, on the outskirts of London, to Abingdon, 80 miles (130 kilometers) upstream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Scarlet uniforms flashed against the riverbank. Wooden skiffs glided in formation. A young swan, gently…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10109,10106,46862,46861,57,45981,50,15228,46860,45980,376,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-66129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-climate-and-environment","10":"tag-david-barber","11":"tag-disease-outbreaks","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-king-charles-iii","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-oddities","16":"tag-river-thames","17":"tag-royalty","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-world","20":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114854335831007738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}