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Pic: RSPCA/BNPS

The male swan (left, who died) sat next to his mate (right)

The male swan is the one who has his head down across his body. The female is sitting on the nest with her head up.

A swan was 'brutally' killed after it was shot in the eye by a thug with an air rifle.

The defenceless male bird was struck while its partner was sitting on their eggs on a nest on the water at Holes Bay, in the coastal town of Poole, Dorset.

Animal-lovers raised the alarm after they spotted the injured swan waddling around with a ruptured eye and blood on the side of its head.

It was rescued and taken to a vets where an X-ray showed the fatal air gun pellet lodged in the bird's neck.