Approximately three years ago we moved to the country in the central area of NC. We have a 7 acre pond on our property and thus acquired a Black Austrailian male swan named Sam, approximately 20 years old now. Sensing Sam was lonely, several months after we moved in we purchased a 5 year old female swan, Nancy. The couple seem very happy together and in fact just had their first cygnets (six) last week. Unfortunately, today Sam and Nancy moved their cygnets to a neighbors pond approximately a mile away.(They are pinioned.) They had never left our property until the end of this past summer and they stayed until December. We were delighted they had returned and even more delighted they had their cygnets here last week. We obviously would like Sam and Nancy home to enjoy and watch the cygnets grow.

We do have 2 labs that are two years old but they have not showed any interest in the cygnets. Sam has been unusally aggressive to us and the dogs since the cygnets were born and consequently we have not tried to get close to them. At the neighbor's pond they have 2 labs too and the overall environment is the same both places except their pond is smaller than ours. We tried to catch Sam and Nancy and bring them home when they left last summer but were unsuccessful. The neighbors said years ago Sam use to come spend a few months of the year at the their pond and then leave. Any ideas what's going on and how we might encourage Sam, Nancy and family to come home? (We do feed them here but they also eat pond vegetation and grasses. We have asked the neighbors not to feed them there.)