Swans are dangerous.

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I think that a common misconception among tourists who visit the UK is that swans are peaceful animals. This is only true if you leave them alone. Unfortunately, I have seen mothers encouraging their children to approach swans and get quite close to them. This is a bad idea.

Swans are territorial creatures. Especially if they have cygnets (baby swans) with them. If they perceive you to be a threat to their children, they will not hesitate to attack you. They have been known to kill small dogs in self-defense and attack young children. Swans are big creatures and you should not underestimate the power of their talons / claws.

If you see a swan walking about, don't approach it. Slow your pace, avoid eye contact, and make sure to provide distance between yourself and the swan, otherwise the swan will feel threatened. If a swan starts making a growling sound and flapping its wings, this is a warning sign that the swan is about to become aggressive if you don't back off. Make sure you have your dog on a leash around swans.

Admire their grace from a distance. However, swans approaching take-off are far from graceful, they have to do a run-up on the water to actually build up enough momentum to hoist themselves up into the air. It takes a lot of effort for a swan to fly and usually takes multiple attempts to manage flight. This is down to the sheer body mass of swans, they must be one of the biggest birds that can fly. I think the most noticeable feature is their long necks. My cat is absolutely terrified of swans and I don't blame her. She runs inside and hides.

We have wild swans here. Keeping respectful distance to a large wild animal feels somehow natural.

Maybe some tourists in UK, seeing them for the first time, don't know swans aren't really domesticated pets?

Trivia: the heaviest recorded flying bird was a 23 kg swan in Poland - but it's not certain weather this particular swan actually could fly.

Koalas are dangerous here in Australia



Most people don't know that either

I remember going to a lake where there were swans and all of a sudden they were getting a bit too close, we left very quickly.

There is some wetlands in my area and we go to the lookout to watch the birds from a distance.

I have a flock of geese that terrify people.They like me because I feed them.They can really get nasty during mating season.I can always tell spring is around the corner when ganders start fighting.
Our tourists get too close to the elk taking pictures but more are injured by falling off the edge of bluffs.

Swans are big geese and geese are f*****g vicious.

We have plenty of swans here, they peck kids all the time. Almost of a rite of passage for toddlers.

When the cops showed up here looking for my fugitive relative they asked permission to look in out buildings in my field.The geese were out there and started heading towards the popo and the cops turned back lol!!

Salad recently started a whole thread about how vicious geese, or swans, forget which (same applies to both), are...and how they know to go for your crotch. Fearless dirty fighters.

I was hiking once, and hauled myself onto the edge of a small cliff. Suddenly a ...THING came at me. My reflex brain saw it as a giant - undulating - cream colored blob of flesh (like a giant alien slug) coming at me. I just screamed like a girl at the top of my lungs. When my eyes focused I realized that it was a canada goose- coming at me- with its head down - its neck down and curving up with its beak pointed at me (come to think of it- pointed more at my crotch), but eyes locked on mine while it made a hissing sound. I told the goose "I dont want trouble"- and inched away and around it. Obviously defending its nest. Got way intact.

There’s a ton of funny YouTube videos of goose attacks.