Walking back from Coventry Colosseum (a small scruffy nightclub not built by the Romans), I passed Swanswell (not a well, but a big pond). It was dark, but there was enough light to watch the swans by. They looked quite angelic out on the dark water. About a third of them were paddling about, feeding and parading like swans do in the daytime. The rest were sleeping as they floated, with heads tucked under their wings. I wondered if they had a rota system going so that they were sleeping in shifts, and if so, how they decided who was on lates (always a tricky one as any shift worker knows).
Initially, I thought that maybe some of them stayed awake for protection, so that they could alert the others in case of danger. After all, a lot of security personnel work nights, its good money. Then I thought; but what creature would attack a swan? I can see that the cygnets are vulnerable, but an adult swan is a big, fierce creature as I know from personal experience. A couple of years ago, I was walking with a group along a canal towpath. There were two swans with a brood of cygnets. They wouldn't even let us get close. The hissing, the power of the wings, the serpent shaped heads, it was scary. We had to retrace our steps. I can't think of what the natural predator of the swan might be. Foxes and badgers would think better of it. No self respecting hawk would try it. Maybe this is the reason swans mate for life, they don't expect their mate to be bumped off.
Now I'm sitting up in bed, I have remembered the natural enemy of the swan. It is, of course, the fishing line.
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