SATURDAY CRITTERS - Unusual Swan Behaviour at Mount Stewart Lake

The Swan saga continues at Mount Stewart, near Newtownards, Northern Ireland.  You may remember I showed you the Swan parents had 3 cygnets however 2 Adult Swan intruders descended on the lake and chased them off 

and they went down to Strangford Lough.  So it was a great surprise to see them back on the lake.   

A couple of weeks ago, I then came across this scene in the reeds where the male parents of the cygnets was there with the 3 cygnets but also 2 more adult Swans, I assumed the intruders who seemed to be stuck in the reeds and one had his head and neck in the water with his eyes closed while to me the other looked exhausted or sick.  The parent Swan then started pecking the one that had its head in the water and I was not sure if he was trying to encourage it to get up or trying to kill it. 

 Although I was only 2-3 feet away from them as that was the distance of water between us and none of them were paying any attention to me..  I felt very helpless so I started waving my arms and shouting at them and after 10 minutes, much to my surprise, the 2 intruders got up from the reeds and walked right past me.  I followed them down a path and they looked fine to me.  The other Swan and  his cygnets made their way across the lake to the other side.  So this is the sequence of images and video I took of the scene when I was not waving my arms around!! 

If the video does not appear below, CLICK HERE.

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