Aren't Swans Supposed to be Vegetarian?

[Paul_D]

I went fishing this weekend just gone with my mate down in darkest Gloucestershire. To cut a long story short I wasn't able to get away from work on Thursday as early as I had liked to travel down. Consequently, I wasn't able to stock up on fresh and frozen deadbait which left us a little short. On giving our statics a good stint we changed over to fresher bait but just in case we ran out we put the old baits in the margins so that they would be as fresh as possible to re-use if needed. Anyhow along comes a Cob and starts to eat them; Lamprey, Smelt and even half a large Mackerel. I've never seen a Swan take fish before, has anyone else?

[John Ellison]

They certainly shovel down my casters. Mind you, they are gorgeous Never seen or heard of eating deadbaits before.

[Alan Taylor]

Paul_D:

A couple of years ago we went survey a water in N.France. It was full of Mirror carp, we put some bread in and they were feeding like crazy including hundreds of baby ones the size of my thumb. The gees came over and started eating the baby mirrors that were concentrating on the bread.

 

It's all food I suppose.

 

Alan(nl)

[Adz]

I used to feed my excess dead baits to the swans at the end of a session on my local water - definitely not vegetarians, more eatwhattheycangetarians.

[Dick Dastardly]

I always thought they eat weed too untill I saw a swan eating small dead fish on a Czech river.

[Peter Sharpe]

I always thought they were incapable of eating anything much wider than a piece of corn. They won't even eat bread until they've mushed it up in the water.

 

Half a mackerel!!! Are you sure it wasn't an albino cormorant?

 

[ 01. December 2003, 09:36 PM: Message edited by: Peter Sharpe ]

[Paul_D]

No seriously, he struggled with the Mackerel for a while trying to break it up, shaking it around but did eventually swallow it. We did remark that watching it swallow the lamprey sections was very similar to watching a Heron swallow a similar catch so overtones of a Cormorant are not far off the mark.

[Peter Sharpe]

I once watched a grebe swallowing eels near the Wissey Outfall, and I could swear it must have eaten twice its own bodyweight in twenty minutes. Perhaps swans can be trained to eat cormorants.

[grumpybum]

As well as swans taking deadbaits, I have had mallard taking them to.

[Ed Matysiak]

I once saw a swan eat a duckling. It picked up the young duck by the head and thrashed it untill the body detached. It then started eating it!

My friend and I wouldn't believe if we didn't see it ourselves. :confused: