WILDLIFE
Symbol Of Forever-Love
Mute swans, however, despite their grace and elegance are also aggressive birds. Care to know why?
I love photographing swans. Like a kid gazing with hopeful anticipation at the display window of a chocolate shop, that is how I feel when I see swans — or mute swans as they are classified.
With questions in my mind like which way to approach the birds or how close to the swan I should be — the excitement is delicious!
The thrill I feel is similar to that of unwrapping a big bag of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
Swans not only epitomise grace and elegance, they also symbolise love and romance.
Swans engage in a long-term relationship. They are monogamous. They famously pair for life, although divorce is a distant possibility.
Or when a partner dies, the surviving swan eventually looks for another partner.
(This I know to be a fact, having closely monitored a male swan whose partner died, with the male swan taking on another partner after many months. This is for another story.)
Swans can be seen in the UK where there are shallow lakes or slow-flowing rivers. They are also seen in urban areas, canals, and parks. They are all over the place, although I haven’t yet met one walking on the street.
Oh, yes, swans can walk as in wobble. They can also fly but awkwardly due to their body weight.
Swans are among the heaviest flying birds in the UK. In fact, swans are one of the largest waterfowl in North America and Europe. They can weigh up to 13kg and with a wing span of up to 2.4m.
Angry birds — but for what reasons?
Mute swans are known to be one of the angriest birds in the world, which include the American crow, the great horned owl, wild turkey, and the northern hummingbird.
Among the reasons for this anger includes invasion of territory and mating competition. Spotting predators could also trigger angry reactions among birds.
Aside from the above, the mute swans which breed across the UK also become aggressive when humans or animals get close to the swans’ nest, often located along the bank where reeds are flattened and the female swan is sitting.
They are especially very aggressive in defending their babies, or cygnets.
I learned this the scary way a few years ago. When I attempted to come closer to a swan family, having seen for the first time what cygnets look like, the father swan suddenly made an explosive honk — at me!
Its eyes looked like big, bulging raisins, its wings arched widely making itself look bigger — to frighten me, and it succeeded.
So startled I was that I nearly lost my balance, with my newly acquired iPhone flying off my hand. So, no video nor photo was taken capturing that intimidating stance of this angry swan.
It would have made my first close encounter with a swan in my most-embarrassing-incidents list in my memory bank — preserved, forever.
THE one good thing I learned from that circumstance is the primary reason why swans are regarded as aggressive.
They love their babies even from the moment the eggs are being incubated.
It is, of course, an instinct, that of protecting their offspring and thus preserve their line.
But instinctive or not, it is a behaviour that human mothers and fathers also possess. That of automatically loving, caring for, and making sacrifices for their children.
Now, if only humans could also adopt the swans’ forever-love, till-death-do-us-part attitude towards their partner, and being assertive in protecting each other — that would be utopia. 😊
Related viewing:
See how protective parent swans are with their babies, with military-like precision: mother swan in front of the cygnets and father swan in the rear.
This is one naughty swan, attacking a young Canada goose who was just as hungry as the rest of the water birds on the frozen lake.
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