Swan Gives Birth To First Ever Cygnets. But Will They Survive?

This swan pair have been living in my local park for over a year and in May of this year they managed to breed successfully bringing in four new baby swan cygnets into the world. Over the first couple of days we managed to follow and film their first adventures as mum begins to teach them how to swim and feed for themselves. Their main source of food is duckweed and there's plenty of it here on this pond. Whilst mum was busy with her chicks dad on the other hand was handling business elsewhere. Around 50% of cygnets don't make it past the first few months of life so dad's main priority is to protect his territory and family from other birds and animals and even from other swans who try to land on their pond. Summer this year brought hot temperatures and very little rainfall which saw water levels in the pond begin to fall. At first the chicks would all sleep and snuggle tightly on the nest but as they got bigger they would start to sleep on the embankments created by the reduction in water. This is where they would get their first introduction to nest building both taught by mum and dad. The weeks and months rolled by and everything was going well until something unexpected happened. A pair of swans landed on the swan family's territory challenging them for the pond. A barrier was put in place to prevent fights but it didn't last long. As you can see these two have managed to get through the barrier there and now they're on the charge and they're targeted. I found this one's over there and they're trying to make a retreat down the other end of the pond. These two succeed on the charge. The wings fled up in that defensive aggressive posture. They're dirty right now. The two swans began to surround them and they were closing in fast. One of them managed to bite the leg of a cygnet and it cried out for help. The invaders looked for an opportunity to push them out of the pond and they succeeded. Our swan family were now evicted from the water and were now residing on the grass fields next to the pond. But under the nose of their enemies they managed to get back onto the water and as you can see the cygnets were very happy about that. Their attempt to re-enter the water was successful but they were immediately met with fierce competition. They were once again pushed back out of the water and onto the grass fields. The fate of what would happen next remained unsure. So after four months it finally seems our chicks have finally fledged. We've come here to the park today and the chicks are nowhere to be found. So that is it. Our four baby swan chicks have finally fledged. We don't know what's going to happen for the rest of the year or in fact next year. We don't know whether the two swans there will stay resident permanently here or the other two migrant swans will take over, push them out and form their family of their own here, a new family. We'll be back here again next year and who knows what's going to happen. Are the resident swan pair going to stay or the migrant family take over? Who knows?