Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The Swans
I live right next to the river and see the swan family every day from my windows. I notice that a lot of people feed them from the Pemberton Rd bridge and deduce that they are probably being fed similar amounts from the other bridges.
I am worried by the amount of white bread they seem to be getting fed, as I had heard that this is bad for swans. I remember the old man who used to take care of the birds in Finsbury Park telling me that it causes swelling in their gullets and vitamin deficiencies. I see a family feeding them whole loaves at a time on a daily basis!
I have done a bit of research and it seems that feeding outside of winter months is unhelpful and white bread is particularly harmful. If you are going to feed these beautiful birds then vegetable trimmings and salad leaves are most beneficial.
I found this guide online:
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/holyrood-and-linllithgow-bird-f...
Tags for Forum Posts: swans
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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A photo by Martin Deutsch from his set on Flickr, "I see signs".
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Permalink Reply by Lauren on
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Of course I'm not saying people should buy swan food! As I said, veggie scraps/peelings and leftover salad is best for them.
Bread fills them up so they don't eat the food they should be eating to give them their essential nutrients.
If you go to Finsbury Park you will see several of the geese suffering as a result of being fed too much white bread. There's a couple who look really old and tatty, as though their feathers are falling out. I asked the warden and he explained this is a result of white bread. When I was doing research on this yesterday I found a lot of councils actually have a statement about it on their website.
There's more than enough food in the river for them, it's just they have become lazy through people feeding them!
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Permalink Reply by Alisha on
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No, certainly not buy special swan food, and would they eat ordinary bird seed? – not sure. But if people are going to buy a white loaf why not buy a LETTUCE instead? I got this from the Swan Sanctuary –
If you want to feed swans then give them fresh bread (mould is poisonous to them), grain such as wheat or corn, and fresh greens such as lettuce or spinach. The food should be thrown onto the water so that they can swallow water with the food - feeding them on land is environmentally unsound and encourages the swans to leave the water whenever they see people which can bring them into harm from cars, dogs etc.>>
This is what they actually eat so I don't know why the Swan Sanctuary suggest bread at all – Being aquatic birds, swans source most of their diet from the ponds, lakes and seas where they live. Most of a swan’s diet is made up of aquatic plants such as pond weed, tubers, stems, leaves and flowers. It is easy for wild swans to fly between bodies of water in search of new sources of food. Swans raised in captivity must be provided with a similar diet. Swans will also forage on land for insects, and invertebrates such as snails, worms and caterpillars. Water beetles and insects flying over water are also fair game to a swan, and mature swans will also eat fish and any small aquatic invertebrates they are able to catch. Domesticated swans are often fed grain and vegetable scraps if they are not provided with plenty of suitable food. Most of the time, they are likely to wander away to find food themselves.>>
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Permalink Reply by dubmill on
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Please tell me you are not going to ask people to buy special swan food.
They don't neccessarily need to do that. The suggestion was that they desist from feeding the swans white bread, which is allegedly not beneficial to them.
It is a recession and people are struggling and going to bed hungry.
This has nothing to do with people not feeding potentially harmful food to swans.
People all over the western world recycle bread by feeding the ducks and swans.
Yes, but it is being suggested that this is inappropriate.
So far there hasn't been a huge disaster.
Although there may not have been a disaster, it is arguably not beneficial to the birds to feed them white bread.
I doubt the swans would find enough food in our river without the extra morsels.
How would you know this? I am not sure what their staple diet is but I am sure it is not white bread. Plus, they do have wings.
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Permalink Reply by Lydia R on
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This problem of swans dying of madeleine overload is not news. Saint-Saëns wrote a musical description of a swan over a century ago, at a time when the entire population of France was eating nothing but madeleines washed down with weak tea. In those circumstances, when a choreographer called Mikhail Fokine interpreted the music as a ballet piece, he naturally assumed that the swan must be dying.
Unfortunately, the warning has been lost to us modern ballet-lovers since nowadays the ballerina performing the dance looks as if she would rush to the lavatory to discard her stomach contents at the mere sight of a photograph of a madeleine.
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Permalink Reply by tigha on
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when your younger you give bread scaraps to swans etc, when your older i thought everyone knew its bad for them, and ducks dying as a result is never going to make headline news
vegetable peelings etc much better
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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on
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Swans eat river weed and stuff like that. I guewss they would like cabbage topping but probably better well soaked?
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These little guys just swam past me while I was out in the garden. They were sailing on the mother swan's back but by the time I got my camera they'd dismounted.
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Oh... it hasn't uploaded all the photos, here they are...
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