This is a mute
swan taking off at dawn.Mute Swans
This is a mute
swan taking off at dawn.
Mute swans are Britian's biggest bird at about 5 foot (1.5m). The female is called a Pen, and male a Cob, and young are Cygnets.
Though they fly well, takeoff requires a stretch of water many tens of metres in length or over which they 'run' and flap to gain speed. We never expect to see any on our ponds which are not only less than 20 metres long, but have islands in the way. Swans rarely land where there is an insufficient runway for take-off - if you find one away from water it will probably have walked there from stream.
We see swans flying overhead
on occasions (actually you hear the
lovely whistle of their wings first), but they are
unpredictable, unlike
Geese which at certain times of the year you can almost
set your
watch to!
There seems to be a widely held view that swans are
vicious and
dangerous to humans, but in 30 years of being around
them we
have never been attacked or seen anybody else attacked
by them.
If you distress them they supply plenty of warning
hisses and wing
flaps that only an idiot would ignore. If you get
between rival cobs
(males) a sudden rush may make you jump, but they have
no
interest in attacking humans that are not interfering
with them.
Geese are much more likely to produce unprovoked attacks,
and
we wonder whether people think that swans will behave in
a similar
manner.
The classic
'Heart' shape pose that Mute Swans adopt during
displays of affection.