Swans are bluffers and can't actually hurt you

I’M NOT afraid of swans. I know they’re consummate bluffers and that although they put on a great show of aggression they can’t actually hurt you.

They have blunt beaks designed for grazing on vegetation and the worst damage they can inflict on human flesh is the equivalent of a child’s pinch.

They can, of course, give you a slap with their wings but the mute swan is one of the world’s heaviest flying birds and to save weight and allow it to get airborne it has developed very light wing bones with a sort of honeycomb structure inside them. This means that the wing bone will break if they hit you with enough force to do any real damage. A swan with a broken wing will almost certainly die and they don’t take that risk.