Photos: Newly hatched Cygnets usher in start of summer

The Benedictine Monks who maintained the Abbotsbury Swannery from 1000 AD up to the 1540s believed the first cygnet hatching of the spring, which usually occured between mid-May and late June, signaled the official start of summer.

A brood of 4 young cygnets swim with their mother inside a pond at the Abbotsbury Swannery near Weymouth, England on May 11. Up to 1,000 free-flying, uncaged swans reside in the Abbotsbury Swannery -- the only publicly accessible colony of nesting mute swans in the world.