Warm and Fuzzy

Photograph by John Halvorson , National Geographic Your Shot

A cygnet peers out from its mother's wing at a local pond in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. According to Your Shot member John Halvorson , the adult swans arrived in February, during an unusually bad winter. "I followed them daily through the mating cycle and the nest building," he says. "When we had a brutal series of ice storms and there was little for them to eat I took them cracked corn. I became a trusted friend, so when the chicks hatched I was allowed to sit close by and photograph the adults and the newly hatched chicks. I stop by frequently to check on them. Of six eggs, four hatched, and today only two survive. They are beautiful birds."

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