Pictured: Road-safe swans lead their cygnets across the road...using a zebra crossing

Especially when the youngsters in question are only a month old and are covered in fluffy feathers.

This family of swans turned heads as they waddled through the Cornish resort of Perranporth on a 500-yard trek from the beach to their home on a boating lake.

What's for supper? One of the swans checks out a fish and chip shop

The cob and pen safely guided the eight cygnets along the pavements - but their parenting skills seemed to desert them at a zebra crossing as they marched the chicks up the middle of the road.

Dave Quinell, who took these pictures, said: 'When I saw them they were lined up outside the fish and chip shop looking into the window. Seeing them on the high street was surreal.'

Swanning along: Someone's clearly not been reading their Green Cross Code properly

Retired RSPCA warden Rex Harper, 71, says he knows the family of swans well and suggested they learnt road safety by watching shoppers.

He said: 'The female knows the area pretty well so they may well have seen other people going over the crossing and picked it up.

'But you can't say that swans are super intelligent because they're not. Maybe they thought it was a pelican crossing for birds.'

That's more like it! The family makes its way along the pavement (top). And home... the birds return to the boating lake (bottom)