Swans jammed together in a small pond
Due to heavy rain, the water level raised drastically in the last days and arose a few small "ponds" besides our local river. Also the main stream is accordingly extremely wild these days.
Recently I've discovered a really strange behavior of our local swans. They live as a couple in our river normally. They started to collectively move to one particular shore pond a few days ago. They got started with two couples at first. Meanwhile there are swimming 20-30 swans in this small little lake.
Note:
- there are also other similar ponds and even bigger ones but they are grouping in one single spot.
- this was discovered in Central Europe
- the swans were Mute Swans
As I understand that they don't want to swim in this crazy river, I don't get why they jam together in such a small spot (it looks a little bit silly, cause they can barely move :D). What is the reason for this behavior?
1 answer
If the swans are forced to stay next to shore (as opposed to casually being there), they flock together to avoid predation. In addition to flock safety by numbers, Swans are very tough, and very aggressive. Several swans are a lot more dangerous.
If you've ever been attacked by a swan, you will know exactly what I mean.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/11432. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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