I was wondering if you could answer this question for me. My partner fishes on a local reservoir and their are two adult swans who live there.

This will be the fourth year we have seen these swans lay and hatch eggs, but we've never seen any of the cygnets reach adulthood. Last year she had 7 cygnets and they disappeared rather rapidly. We never found out what happened to them. This year she had 9 cygnets, and very quickly lost three of them (we have no idea to what, we were told there was a wild mink about but that doesn't seem to be the case - we even put down traps for the mink just encase). She had 6 left and they seemed to be thrieving very well but when we went today there was only 1 left and another of the anglers said they had seen the male killing the cygnets.

Whilst he seems to be a great father, last week we did notice that he was not swimming with his mate or his young ones. We have been leaving waterfowl pellets at the edge of the water for them, but there is quite alot of food readily available for all of them, so I don't think this is the case.

What would make him kill them??

Any insight into this would be appreciated, as it was quite distressing last year hearing her calling for the little ones but they had all gone.