Murderous Mute Swans

On Saturday morning with a cold North-westerly wind blowing in my face, I whiled away an hour or so on the jetty at Wilstone Reservoir, swapping news with Steve, a birding friend from Tring. We were watching a Water Pipit threading a path through a gaggle of sleeping Shovellers, as it worked it's way busily along the water's edge, when something rather strange caught my eye. For a few seconds I couldn't work out what was happening. A Mute Swan had clambered onto the back off another Swan and was pecking violently at it's neck and head as the half submerged victim swam slowly towards the spit in a desperate bid to escape. This proved to be a bad move as the stricken bird soon became beached in the shallow water and unable to break free, lay prostrate, neck outstretched as it's assailant rained down blows and attempted to hold it's head under water. Several other curious Swans soon gathered at the scene of the crime and I feared that they were going to join in the attempted murder, but instead they became very territorial and set about squabbling with each other. Steve told me that he had witnessed Mute Swans trying to drown each other before and had once seen a man in a rowing boat repeatedly beating a Swan with an oar in a bid to persuade it to release it's victim. We had begun to talk about the possibility of making a strategic rescue bid when the aggressor suddenly seemed to lose interest and stepped off it's bedraggled victim, who waddled unsteadily onto the spit, only to be chased away by another Swan. Many people believe that nature should be allowed to take it's course but I am a confirmed intervener, so I was relieved when the situation resolved itself without our help.