My favourite hobby is over:(

Thanks for the advice. I guess I should find a new hobby.

That's true. The ducks and swans do look pretty healthy here too.

I don't think they'd starve. They usually eat the plants that are around the river. I think they like the bread because it makes a change from plants. That's probably why they didn't like the lettuce, it just looked like a bunch of leaves floating on the river. Maybe I'll feed them again during the winter when there's no one else feeding them.
It's good that you were feeding the birds brown bread. It's a lot better than white bread.

I think I will just watch them. I feel bad just watching them though because they always expect people to have food.
It's nice that there was swans at the hospital. It must have been nice to have something beautiful to look at while you were worried about your dad.

see my post below, you don't have to just watch them, you can still feed them and should continue to as they consider you a friend and a free meal.

Thanks. I'll probably find something else to pass the time.

They do love bread. Apparently it has no nutritional value though and it stops them eating healthy things like grass and plants. I'm not sure if they'd like bird seed but it might be worth a try.

I read that if they eat too much bread they get full and eat less grass and plants. Maybe I should just feed them a little less than I have been.

That's like telling one of us we shouldn't eat dessert every day because it's 'bad' for us. Now as long as you don't eat the entire pie or a quart of ice cream every night, dessert every night isn't bad lol.

Most of the bread I gave them landed in the water. When I did feed them on land they didn't drink any water immediately afterwards so I guess I didn't do them any harm. I did also read that bread has no nutritional value and fills them up so they eat less healthy foods like plants and grass. I'm not sure how true it is but I'd hate to do any harm to them. They're so used to bread that they turn their noses (or bills) up at anything else. I might try bird seed, but would it float in water?

It's been my experience that most bird seed and cracked corn float, and the stuff that sinks is eaten as well, they know how to dunk their heads in the water for food below the surface.
I really don't think you have harmed your swans, if all else fails, you can try multigrain or whole wheat bread.The swans were most likely eating other food when you aren't around, and see your stuff as a "treat".

Another thing that concerns me that I didn't mention is there's now a lot of ducks in the river. Until recently there was just swans in that area of the river . I've seen the swans being aggressive and chasing the ducks away from the bread. I've read that this can have terrible consequences. This makes me think that feeding them may not be a good idea.

Swans (or larger more aggressive ducks) will do that. it's the same type of behavior as people, the drama queens and the football quarterbacks try to get everything first

Don't think you caused the behavior, they'd be doing that even if you didn't feed them.

I guess I could give them wholemeal bread. It has plenty of seeds and grain and things.

http://www.querycat.com/f... they like to eat molluscs as well! Buy them some oysters crispeater!

Thanks for the advice about molluscs.

They will also enjoy other invertebrates such as crayfish, but they can probably find those on their own, and you would not want to add a live creature to the water that is not native to the river there, or you can accidentally screw up the ecosystem (if the birds don't eat them).

That's true MSV1313. I don't think I'd really like to feed animals or crustaceans to other animals anyway. I know it's nature, but I'd rather leave that to the swans to do for themselves.