A large white waterbird with a long neck. Adults have an orange bill with a black knob at its base.
The bill tip is also black. It swims with the neck gently curved, and the sexes have similar plumage.
In the mute swans of Abbotsbury in southern Britain, laying dates were associated with the ages of both partners. Laying became earlier during the younger part of parental life and later at older ages, producing curved age relationships.
The 2013 paper used records from 1979–2008 at a semi-natural colony provisioned during breeding. Individually ringed birds averaged 104 breeding pairs annually; parental identities, first-egg dates and clutch sizes were recorded. The laying-date analysis used 1,573 breeding observations. Because partners tended to be of similar ages, a separate analysis removed the component of male age associated with female age. The main finding linking male age and identity to laying time persisted.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Lead fishing weights were a conservation problem for mute swans in Great Britain. A 2019 study found lead poisoning in 25 of 74 birds examined after death during 1971–1986, compared with 36 of 584 during 1987–2014, following regulations introduced in 1987. These figures describe post-mortem samples. Winter population indices also rose after regulation, supporting reduced environmental lead as a conservation benefit in this region.