I was hoping you could help as I know nothing about swans and their natural behaviour and I appreciate I may be worrying over nothing but I am very concerned about a cygnet ?????

My partner is a keen carp fisherman and I often go with him when he goes on a weekend fishing.

We have been at ladywood lakes in Yorkshire since yesterday and their is a family of swans on the lake,

I love to watch and feed them, my partner isn't impressed as he tells me to ignore them and not to feed them but I take no notice and feed them bread I bring a long for them and the ducks.

During this I noticed that one of the signets is significantly smaller than the other 3 quite dramatically which concerned me but what really scared me was the mother. The mother hissed at the smallest baby regular and pecked at him: her causing a cry which is heartfelt

This really concerned me because this is mum attacking her signet and the smallest one at that.

The other 3 were fine feeding together

But mum hissed at the smallest and pecked at her every few seconds making me feel very upset.

Is this normal ???????

My partner said that it may be because this baby tended to be a loner from the other 3 signets and swam a little further to get the food

But I didn't think so because mother swan was doing this when she was with the other 3 siblings minding her own business

I saw this as bullying and it truly upset me. Especially when my partner said that it wasn't normal for her to be so small compared to the other 3 !!!!!

I was hoping you may be able to advise and I am worried sick about the signet

Thanks so much

Hayley