Keep feeding him and letting him get used to you as well as facilitating the trust factor. Try to feed him further up the bank, starting slow by dropping food just off the bank and then add a few feet. Shake the bag of bread and call him each time. See if you can increase this distance while at the time, see if he will follow you and the bag. If you can get him to come to you at the sound of the bag, place a chair up the bank and feed him while sitting next to you. Keep increasing the distance from the pond until you can get him to sit near your garage or patio (if you have one). Then, get him inside to sit by you. If you have a garage, etc., and he will trust you enough to come up and sit by you, you can lock him in the structure for the winter. Keeping him on a frozen pond will either entrap him in the ice, which he could possibly drown or be trapped and allow a predator to walk across the ice and kill him.

If you cannot house the swan, you will have one time to capture him as you get him away from the pond to see if there might be a wildlife rehabilitation center in the area that might be able to house him for the winter or find him a good home.

If there are no predators in the area, or you can place a de-icer (without any machinery that can entrap the swan), he will be able to bathe and eat without the threat of a frozen pond. If a de-icer cannot be used, you will need to break up the ice near the bank and entice him with supplemental food. This would be a last resort, because he could still fall in the ice if he should wander further onto a frozen pond. But, if he hangs out in a shallow side near you most of the time, this would be a viable solution. Please let us know if none of these solutions are viable and we will see if we might have another plan to save him. The Regal Swan