Dear Swan Specialist,
Thanks for all the wonderful and fascinating information.
So swan parents can be as lousy as human parents.
I will enclose a poem of mine which reinforces this idea.

SO THIS IS MOTHER NATURE’S IDEA

Inspired by a NYT article 5/9/06

Mother guinea hen
with a dozen chicks
walks fast enough to thin
the brood to two by day’s end.
In lean times,
or, if a new stud arrives
lions, mice and monkeys
spontaneously abort
or abandon their newborn.
Pandas often birth twins,
when one is clearly stronger
mothers leave the weaker.
The Magellanic penguin feeds
90% of her fish-catch
to the strong one,
10% to the other.
If a rabbit’s nest is examined
by a curious child,
Mother quickly eats
all her young.
Hale egret babies
gang up on the small,
peck them to death
as Mother or Father preens and yawns.
Ditto for pelicans, cranes,
and other winged parents.
When food is scarce
Mother hawks and owls
refuse to feed half their young,
may even eat them.
Piglets’ small eyeteeth stick out
from their lower jaws—
vying for the best teat,
they chomp at competitors.
Sometimes Mom finishes off the job
with a loving crush to the injured.
Starving primates won’t
abandon or reject their crippled
or diseased young;
but watch out for neighbors—
kidnapping and cannibalism are in
the game plan. I don’t understand
Mother’s favoring her first twin,
discarding the smaller one
who had to venture out on her own,
but found sustenance on a diet of poetry.