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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think that swans are awful creatures?

95 replies

SkinittingFluffyBunnyBonnets · 09/04/2011 21:02

I was walking along the canal today....ours is quite picturesque with barges, lots of reedy plants and duckies with their ducklings etc. There have always been a pair of swans on the canal...as long as I've lived here (most of my life) I remember seeing them....well today I heard an awful noise as I walked and I saw this swan shoving through some reeds on the other side of the canal and this duck freaking out...and the swan put it's head into the reeds and came out with a tiny, wriggling ducklng in it's beak! Sad

It has STOLEN it from the nest and the poor thing was wriggling and the Mother was freaking and the swan dipped it into the water over and over and drowned it.

I walked away but lots of people stood and stared in shock...and when I looked back it had it's horrible big swanny neck and head stuck BACK IN the reeds and was after another one to drown.

Sad WHY did it do this? They don't eat meat do they? Was it after the nsting spot or something?

It really disturbed me.

OP posts:
SingingSands · 09/04/2011 22:01

I've always hated swans, I was bitten quite badly by one when I was only 4. I decided to give them another chance when I was 17 and was bitten again! Me and swans are over. I'd like to eat one.

FlaminGreatResurrection · 09/04/2011 22:05

Grin at SingingSands

That post was fucking hilarious.

Sorry about the being bitten twice though, obviously Blush

sausagesandmarmelade · 09/04/2011 22:05

If swans are evil then so are magpies (bullying bastards).

Hate em, ever since I saw one take a young blackbird in front of it's mother.

Round here they think they own the show.
They have a nest in a tall tree two gardens away and patrol the area
terrorising all the other birds within a certain radius (seen it with my own eyes). I wish a sparrowhawk upon their nest or a very strong freak gust of wind.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 09/04/2011 22:07

yes birds are totally dinosaurs. They are the velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

when I let my chickens on the lawn and they march along it in a line, systematically, looking for creatures to eat, it is really creepy.

FlaminGreatResurrection · 09/04/2011 22:07

All this Avian Ire!

And I thought I was alone in this.

sausagesandmarmelade · 09/04/2011 22:10

I love the birds...the little ones that feed in my garden, the cute little tits and robins and sparrows. They need a chance.

Call me un-reasonable, I know it's nature, I know other birds can be territorial (even the cute robin) but nothing, nothing is going to make me like a magpie ever again.

KevinMcKiddsThighs · 09/04/2011 22:15

Oh I hate swans.

When DS was 6 months old we went to feed the ducks down the lake, we stopped on a bench and I was feeding DS a yoghurt when two, big, fecker swans strolled over and circled the buggy, I pooed myself and ran up the grass bank, abandoning baby DS to his fate Blush and rang my dad and made him come and rescue us Blush. Not my finest parenting moment.

DS is now 5 and we've never fed the ducks again!

Morloth · 09/04/2011 22:15

That's birds for you, dinosaurs in disguise.

Hate them all, but most of them taste good.

This one was reducing competition for resources and probably ensuring that the mother duck had no reason to be in the vicinity of its babies so that she didn't do the same thing to the cygnets.

karen2010 · 09/04/2011 22:15

swans also tried to drown dogs like OP says in here post.

uniquegeek · 09/04/2011 22:22

I love birds myself and recently joined the rspb. I alsp love swans. Ok; the behaviour that you describe could be described as ''awful'' but as far as the swan is concerned they are getting rid of potential competition to their family and territory. Such is nature.
Look at us humans; we start wars. THAT is territotrial. The difference between swans and us is that our cruel behaviour is more calculated and therefore more evil imo.Being territorial is perfectly natural. Nature is cruel but beautiful; as are swans. Elegant but deadly.

uniquegeek · 09/04/2011 22:24

You have to admire the elegance, beauty and the mating for life thing.

meditrina · 09/04/2011 22:24

I used to be near a pond where there were two families of ducks. The first set of duclpklings were born a little while before the second set. The bigger ducklings attacked and drownedthe little ones.

It's not just swans Sad

cornsilkily · 09/04/2011 22:27

I love birds as well Smile
The duck shouldn't have made it's nest anywhere near the swans - it's expected behaviour for a larger animal.

Goblinchild · 09/04/2011 22:27

Kevin, you left your baby to be eaten by velociraptors swans?
That's dreadful. If you were a swan, you'd have chased the threat away.

cornsilkily · 09/04/2011 22:28

...and cats kill birds for pleasure so surely they are more naughty?

wendyfromtheyard · 09/04/2011 22:33

Swans are the most fantastic creatures imo. The lough beside us usually has hundreds on it. A fantastic sight to wake up to. But they do startle me when they fly low especially at night, very ghost like

FlaminGreatResurrection · 09/04/2011 22:34

I was tempted to flee and leave my stroller too Kevin. Well DD was holding the bait bread.

If i were a swan I could have broken both the velociraptor's arms with my wings but I am not.

And i have been seriously creeped out by them since reading Angela Carter's Magic Toyshop as a teen

uniquegeek · 09/04/2011 22:34

I love the fact that they are related to dinasours esp veloceraptors. veloceraptors are cool; lean, mean, killing machines and very succesful as animals (albiet extinct!)
They are a missing link to prehistoric times and therefore should be regarded with interest.

YouaretooniceNOT · 09/04/2011 22:36

Thingumy can geese cause a human serious bodily damage?

My Fathers' friend had a farm and the geese surrounded us as we went through the gate. The farmer instructed us to clap our hands as loudly as we could and they went away but not away from me i'm afraid. I was terrified as i was a child at the time. They were scary as hell.

FlaminGreatResurrection · 09/04/2011 22:37

The Magic Toyshop

God knows what happened to the link in the pp.

Ripeberry · 09/04/2011 22:43

Moorhens are the worst! They peck their own chicks hard and if they survive then they care for them. Shock

Likeaninjanow · 09/04/2011 22:45

yANBU...DS1 was badly bitten when he was 2. Never grabbed & ran so fast...

carriedababi · 09/04/2011 22:58

i hate the swans too.

i know i will get flammed but dh actually had to kick one, as one tried to go for dd when she was only about 2.

he had to get it away from dd
and i don't blame him

nasty things

sollylololo · 09/04/2011 23:00

Make them run in the Grand National.

LetThereBeRock · 09/04/2011 23:02

Even meringue swans, Carried?Grin