Swan Family Strolls Belmar Boardwalk

Like many parents, they just needed a day out with the kids.

Late last week I started seeing posts on social media asking if anyone knew where the swans went that normally 'lived' in a lake in Belmar. Apparently they had gone missing.

Until the local residents of Belmar realized that mom, dad, and the kiddie swans were just doing what lots of us want to do on a summer day -- take a stroll on the boardwalk.

Not only is it totally adorable to see these photos, but it's also so awesome that the police helped the swans stay socially distanced from the humans passing by.

I spent many years living in Belmar right on Lake Como and the swans were a huge part of  our community, sometimes coming up onto our front lawns and approaching our porches. We knew better than to try and reach out and pet them (they can be a bit scary, actually, if they feel threatened) but to see the babies walking with their parents is just totally adorable.

Special thanks to Meg Fireman for sharing her photos!

As I mentioned Friday morning on our show, though, not all of the wildlife things we seem to be seeing these days are cute. As I was driving through the city of Asbury Park at dawn Friday morning to begin our boardwalk show, a deer ran down Cookman Ave, got spooked by a car, and ended up jumping into the lake, which had to be freezing. The poor thing swam across the whole lake, geese following him, and kept trying to jump back out on the other side. That water had to be freezing. Just the fact that there are deer strolling through a city like Asbury Park is crazy, but we have seen them several times both on the main streets and romping on the beach in our 7 years of doing morning shows down there.

And then there was the giant whale that found itself in the Shrewsbury River recently....boaters were asked to beware when it seemed the whale was temporarily tangled in a fishing net.

With all the craziness of the pandemic (and now the protests) it is nice to see something so sweet...as crazy as all the wildlife seems to have become lately.