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Originally Posted by bobbarber  Hello Amoeba, I don`t know if swans adopt other cygnets, but mallards and other ducks do. I have often seen a pair of mallards with a flotilla of ducklings of different sizes that would far out number a normal clutch.
The Lesser Black-backed will often nest inland (on moors and on islands in lakes) do you have anything like that within flying distance...Bob |
Hm... well, it's probably the most likely situation. I know there was another swan pair further down the canal, I don't know if something maybe happened to them or if the cygnets just wandered off (though I thought it would be highly unlikely for such watchful parents to lose all of their 7 cygnets...)
No, we really don't have anything like that here, especially where they were swooping. It's all pretty developed around here, with a scheme full of flats and roads and in this case a shopping mall and a carnival (I can't wait for that carnival to leave it's so blooming loud when I'm trying to sleep at night). If Fieldfare95 is right, they could be using the tops of the vents on the roofs of the flats (the vents have this little flat roof bit at the top). I've seen them sitting there a lot.
Thanks for your replies. I may not have a definite answer but it makes a little more sense.