Comparative Swan Feeding Behaviours in Melbourne

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Swans were observed at Al and RR in the months of April and May, 2017. RR is found in the northern Melbourne suburb of Mill Park, in a suburban/urbanized area, its coordinates are 37.6658° S, 145.0642° E. Al is found next to the CBD in Melbourne, and the Al Lake is found at these coordinates 37.848°S 144.971°E. Both locations have body of water with one or more islands found within.
Three different feeding styles were observed and recorded, foraging in the water, grazing on the land and feeding directly from humans. Foraging in water has two different behaviours, the first is the deep foraging when the C. atractus elongate it’s neck straight down into the water, the second is the shallow foraging, placing the bill into the water moving it …show more content…

If the weather became unfavourable to visitors or observers, for the hour before and anytime within the observational hours, for example, raining, hail, strong winds, etc., the observations for the day would be cancelled. Starting the observations at 2p.m. running for duration of two hours, the different foraging behaviours were recorded of one randomly selected adult. The foraging behaviour was recorded either of the three which are presented above, the timing would start once the food was in contact with the bill or once the behaviour was known to be feeding, e.g. deep water foraging, with its head and neck being under the water. The timing one behaviour would be stopped if the swan either started portraying a different feeding stagey or there is no feeding behaviour observed for 20 seconds past the last feeding …show more content…

It was found that foraging and location seperatly didn’t affect duration of feeding (Two-way ANOVA, F = 2.0028, DF = 1, 122, p-value>0.01394)( Two-way ANOVA, F = 1.8306, DF = 1, 122, p-value>0.1786). The interaction between location and foraging behaviour does have an effect on duration of feeding, these findings support the hypothesis (Two-way ANOVA, F = 32.23, DF = 2, 122, p-value<0.0261). As seen in Figure 1 & 2 for Al the significant results come from an increased mean of water foraging. For RR the significances comes from difference from water as seen in both Figures. Looking at Figure 2 you see that there is a substainal difference between land and human, showing that human directed feeding behaviour is the dominant feeding

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