I counted 16 swans ambling up the Taff a while back. Is ambling the right word? What is the aquatic equivalent? I love it when they all go bottom up:
I’ve never seen ducks standing on the weir ducking for food. Then some gulls appeared, only the black heads, so they slid off the slope to pretend they were going there anyway.
texthistory 
beautiful
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Paddling? Ambling indicates walking….and yet paddling is not really satisfactory as it is vague—one could paddle furiously or languidly, but you wouldn’t say one ambled furiously…hahaha. A leisurely pace is embedded in the meaning of one but not the other.
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Well put. Yet another gap in our vocabulary.
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