Heather Lewis from Badgar Emergency Wildlife Rescue spoke to The Courier as she was attempting to release a juvenile swan back into the environs of the Lake on New Year's Day.

The grey down-covered bird wasseparated from its family group and injured some weeks ago. It and four other juvenile swans have been cared for by BADGAR and were now ready for re-release.

But there's a problem. The bird will struggle to survive unless it's released back into its native family group. So Heather has the task of taking the swan along the edges of the lake and releasing it near groups of other swans.

"If it recognises its family, it will likely go and join them," Heather says.

So far, no luck. The bird flees in the opposite direction from the family of swans, and Heather is forced to capture it and return it to the box she has brought it in.

She says the problem is caused by people feeding the birds.

"They come to get the bread and food people are giving them," she says.

"People are parking, feeding the birds from their cars. Some people are just parking and throwing it out the window of their car, so the birds are wandering onto the road to get the food.

"It's one of the reasons so many are getting hit by cars; they are on the road to get food."

Heather says if there's a lesson she would like to get through to people visiting the Lake, it's very simple: Please Don't Feed The Birds.

She says it's not good for them and encourages unnatural behaviour, as well as the growing toll of birds killed and maimed by cars.

Orphan birds struggle to survive in the wild, and it's no different in suburbia.

"I understand the council are planning to put signs up soon, asking people not to feed the birds, so maybe that will help, but I'd really like people to think about what they do."

Naturalist and bird watcher Roger Thomas (see Nature Notes in The Courier each Friday) says while feeding the birds is a great way for children to learn about them up close, it's not really a good practice.

"Bread, especially white bread, is not really good for them. Birds are not designed to eat food in large quantities."

Mr Thomas says the consumption of large amounts of non-native food can adversely affect the digestive system, effectively 'blocking them up.'

He says he can understand how orphaned birds will struggle to find a place back in the lake's ecosystem, as birds are naturally highly territorial, but educating people about the downside of feeding the swans and other waterbirds will take a long time, he suggests.

"People have been doing it for generations up there. They don't understand how their actions have other consequences," he says.