Swan Rescue South Wales

Wednesday 7th. March. At the third attempt, (following two postponements) had lunch with  ‘aaa’ at Swindon and returned via Eastville Park in Bristol to respond to three calls received in quick succession concerning a ‘tackled’ juvenile swan. On arrival, discovered very quickly nothing could be done there and then – bird appeared to be ‘moored’ out in the middle by a long length of line coming from his beak, and so tomorrow it will be necessary to return with the inflatable. (As a footnote, there were 11 adults on the water that afternoon – never, in all the time we have been coming here have we ever seen more than just the one family). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there is desperately sad news from Blaen-y-Pant (Newport); the female of a long established resident pair is dead, and so a post mortem is an absolute ‘must’.

Thursday 8th. March. Set off early with inflatable and body of dead swan for pm aboard, and heading for Eastville Park. (Had to divert en route to Llanwern to assess possibility of catching a Canada Goose with a nasty looking leg injury; very quickly came to the conclusion there was no chance!) On arrival, met with Alan C who has been a great help in recent times. Our swan had freed himself overnight, but was still trailing a long length of line – maybe as much as 10 metres. He is now back with his parents and, albeit it a bit warily, is coming in reasonably close for food. At this location, it is usual to catch a swan very easily because they do come in really close, but on this occasion there was just enough doubt to make the use of the swan hook essential. That done, and the line cut, it was time to head off for Shepperton with the little swan, just to check he wasn’t also carrying a hook; little point releasing him at EP with all the territorial mayhem there, likely to continue for some time, and, for sure, he would become embroiled in it. (While all this was going on, received a report from the canal back in Newport of an injured duck; observing how extremely difficult ducks are to catch, all I could do was promise to have a look as soon as I got back). And so, finally to Shepperton.

An x-ray of the body of the dead swan suggested the cause of death might have been because she was ‘egg bound’; how very very sad. Thankfully, the juvenile appeared not to have ingested a hook, so he’s fine. Next up was a call from someone living between Cardiff and Barry we had visited two years ago to deal with a dog attack. This time it sounded like a serious territorial dispute. Fortunately Steve lives not too far away, and hopefully he would be able to deal with this, so I gave Sarah his number – and yes he managed to secure the victim and get him to HQ. At some time amidst this lot there came another call about an adult with a broken wing somewhere south of Ross-on-Wye, at Kerne Bridge; question – would I be able to get there before it got dark? Time to head west; at Junction 6 on the M4, the phone rang – it was the Highways Agency asking for help! They had contained an adult swan which had come down on the M4 eastbound(!) just west of Junction 11. Time for unaccustomed use of accelerator to Junction 12, get off and head back east again, where a sizeable posse of orange coated guys were waiting. The swan was extremely lucky; he had succeeded in not getting himself killed on the M4, and also managed to avoid the railway line which passes below the motorway at that point – an incident down there would have been every bit as bad …. Anyway, loaded him into the car and now its time to head west – again!

The route to Kerne Bridge was via Swindon and Gloucester with the worry about not knowing if it would be possible to find the swan if the people working in the area had finished work and gone home. Thank goodness the fates were kind, and I was able to receive detailed instructions as to how to find the casualty – in the lower part of a huge field bordering the River Wye, and some little way below Goodrich Castle. As I approached, still in the car, along what amounted a causeway – I imagine the field in question floods very easily at certain times of the year – I could count roughly 30 – 40 swans, and all showing some unease at my appearance, and therefore starting to move away from me. It was time for a bit of both quick thinking and quick moving; stop car – change shoes – retrieve two swan hooks from back of car plus one swan wrap. The casualty was very obvious with a badly dropped wing on his right hand side. It was absolutely essential to get between him and the river – if he reached the river, there is no question but that the game would be up. So what a pity this next scene was not videoed; there I was, making a pretence of running as fast as I could – not towards the swan, but on a line such as to cut his route to the river, and all around the rest of the swans were getting out of the way – many of them taking to the air! Suffice to say, the capture was made, albeit somewhat breathlessly. What was interesting about this swan was that, despite what appeared to be plentiful grazing, he was, in my view underweight at just 6.9 kg. And so back to Newport – a mere matter of 340 miles later!

Friday, 9th. March. So, if you’ve counting, there are three swans to go to Shepperton, and here they are, actually in the pen which had been reserved for them at the National Swan Sanctuary!

1. Crash landed on M4 J11.

2. Centre. Broken wing; Kerne Bridge.

3.Right. ‘Grubby’; territorial dispute – Vale of Glamorgan.

After all of this, maybe it won’t come as a surprise, the journey home was not a direct one! A few days earlier we had received a report of a juvenile cowering on a marshy lake at Cannop in the Forest of Dean – obviously hoping father couldn’t see him or forgotten about him; his location was such a rescue was out of the question. Even so, we continued to worry about him/her. Anyway, as far as it was possible to tell, it appears the bird had somehow managed to escape. Finally, there was a concern about a dead swan at the confluence of the rivers Monnow and Wye at Monmouth. Locally, there was a worry it might have been the cob from Monnow Bridge which had perforce been released elsewhere, might have returned and run promptly into territorial trouble. The bird carried no rings, and so the precise detail of what actually happened will never be known.

And so, apart from a ‘tackled’ moorhen at St Georges Park in Bristol on Saturday (10th) that was quite week, and it should be easy to see it is impossible to be in more than one place at a time.

6th February; Huntington Court, Hereford; full scale territorial dispute going on as a result of arrival of another adult pair – these taken into care for re-homing.
12th February; report of exhausted swan near Saracen’s Head pub at Symonds Yat -call too late (dark) to do anything until following day. Then, we found one dead swan – adult male – seriously underweight – had starved due to a chip strap, and female which turned out to be a partial amputee, had a leg injury, and impaired eyesight – into care,
13th February; last months Tawny Owl released back at Blackwood.
15th February; received report of swan with fishing tackle at Kenfig Nature Reserve. Attended, but could find no such casualty, but did find victim of fox attack which was still alive – just. Travelled towards National Swan Sanctuary immediately, but swan died en route.
16th February; en route to funeral of friend in Pembrokeshire, diverted to Bute East Dock, Cardiff to detackle adult swan.

19th January; report of juvenile trapped in sluice at Hendre Park Lake; attended, but no problem found.
20th January; territorial dispute at Flaxley, Gloucs. Pair driven from their home of many years; female died as a result of flying into power lines and male recovered from nearby meadow – very forlorn – taken into care.
22nd January; Cob with fishing line at Pwll-y-Waun, Porthcawl. Unable to catch, but later appeared to free itself.
Gull caught in fishing line at Eastville Park, Bristol; freed by m.o.p. who stripped off and went in for it; well done brave man.
Territorial dispute at Cwmbran Boating Lake.
25th January; Call from Celtic Manor re juvenile with broken leg (probable golf ball impact – its happened before!); attended but unable to catch – he can fly perfectly well.
26th January; to St. Georges Park Bristol – juvenile not feeding because he was found to have fishing line forming a chip strap; resolved in situ.
27th January; Tawny Owl with severe muscle strain in one wing/shoulder as a result of prolonged suspension from branch of tree by fishing line – R. Sirhowy, Blackwood.
28th. January; grounded juvenile at Caldicot – collected and released at Cosmeston.
Collapsed juvenile bottom of Guinea Street BS2. – to National Swan Sanctuary next day.

Date: 17th January, 2012.  Location: Monnow Bridge, Monmouth. Received two calls Tuesday afternoon about this 11.8 kg cob which was in very serious difficulty. He had been rescued from the river and taken to Monnow Bridge Veterinary Practice, where, quite rightly the view was taken dealing with what was obviously a very  serious case of an encounter with lost or discarded fishing tackle. Coming from the birds beak was a short length of heavy duty fishing line attached to which was what turned out to be  a small fish tightly bound to a triple pronged barbed hook with light weight monofilament. The line could be felt some way down the birds neck, but was obviously held fast by something.

Compaction of small dead fish bound to triple hook by mono-filament line.

As above.

It was one of those situations when there was no need for any discussion as to what the correct course of action should be; to the National Swan Sanctuary at Shepperton – IMMEDIATELY. As always, we phoned ahead advising an eta of about 1815 hours, which was more or less what we achieved.

Within minutes of our arrival, an X-Ray examination confirmed the presence of a second triple pronged barbed hook some way down the oesophagus.

Triple pronged hook in neck of monmouth male swan.

On the strength of this, the in-house vet was called immediately, and preparations were made to operate to remove this hook as soon as possible. In the meantime, large doses of antibiotics and pain relief were administered. It is no exaggeration to say within minutes of this, it was obvious he was starting to feel better as he attempted to ‘chat’ to another very sick bird in the adjacent cell in the intensive care unit.

The operation was long and difficult, but, ultimately successful, ending at about 2200 hrs.Inevitably there was collateral damage to the wall of the oesophagus as it passed through to the point where it finally rested – it was this which contributed to the operation being a lengthy one. What remains, assuming things continue to go well is the prospect of a 2 – 3 week recuperation period.

This bird has a mate, and they are a breeding pair, loved and admired by those who use the Monnow Bridge in Monmouth. The start of the breeding season is not all that far distant. Who could have done this awful thing …? But, as has been said so many times before, we doubt they care anyway.

While this is being typed on 14th June, it actually relates to the follow-up to this story which occurred on 23rd. February when it was clear it was time to return the swan to South Wales; we left Shepperton at 12.50 pm, arriving in Monmouth some three hours later, only to be faced with the worst possible nightmare – a pair of swans was occupying our ‘friend’s’ territory. No doubt there will be those who will criticise us, but be in no doubt we sought to do only what was best for the swan – find somewhere safe to release him, and not immediately precipitate a king sized territorial dispute. As a result, we spent the next two hours, probably covering the best part of another 100 miles before we finally got home ourselves looking for, assessing and finally deciding what was the right thing to do. So, we checked the River Wye at Monmouth, Symonds Yat and Ross-on-Wye, and decided in all cases it was far too risky, What we needed was to be able to release the swan into a ‘flock situation’; this would enable him to sort himself out, and, we suppose, make the final decision to stay, or move on himself. Thus it was that we ended up finally at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park …. Exhausted, or what …?

John registers concern about the adult female; she spends a lot of time out of the water and away from the rest of the family. Yesterday, Edwin saw her fall over a couple of times, and there’s a feeling her coordination is not all it should be. Anyway, we went and had a look, having ‘done’ the Vale of Glamorgan for the second time in two days. …sensed something wasn’t quite right, but felt it was better to keep an eye on things for a few days, and there are no individuals better for this than John and Edwin; watch this space.

If you can pick the bones of that, you’re a better … than I am G… D…!!

Amazingly, we’re almost back at Sevenoaks Fishery – almost an adjacent property, but this time it is a serious ‘territorial’ dispute. It’s that time of year when Dad is clearing the decks for the next breeding season, and in this case Sid, as he is known, is very serious. There are still three of last years cygnets around, and we have to assume our focus today is on the last of the male babies; he’s be driven maybe 75 metres up the feeder stream, which flows through moderately dense woodland which allows him no prospect of flying out, and Sid certainly won’t allow him back onto the lake. So, a team of three split either side of the stream, armed with nets and crooks actually gave him little hope of not being captured and removed from very immediate danger. As soon as we had recovered from our exertions, assisted by a most excellent cup of coffee, we made our way to the Knap at Barry and let him go – there was the odd backward glance, but certainly no thanks, but that’s normal.

Oh! And by the way, while all this was going on, the phone refused to stop ringing – three calls, including two about an ailing swan in the lock on the River Thames at Lechlade, which fortunately we were able to delegate to a more local rescuer.

Once again, thank you to Steve for helping us out as it was getting dark (9/1) by going to Sevenoaks fishery to collect this young swan which was trailing a length of tangled line with a hook at the end of it.

We believe its a young female, but even for a small bird, she is, in our opinion significantly underweight at barely 6 kg. While she is still somewhat subdued, at least she is eating well.

Later in the week, it started to become apparent our bird was ailing – principally, she more or less stopped eating, and when we did check, she certainly had lost some of what little weight she had. Anyway, by Sunday (15th), it was clear we had to do something, and in this type of situation, ‘something’ is almost always a trip to the national Swan Sanctuary at Shepperton. This we did early on Monday – not always a good day to travel, but made especially worse on this occasion because the M4 was closed between Chippenham and Swindon, so an alternative route had to be found.

Within minutes of arrival at Shepperton, an X-ray examination had been completed; this revealed two small hooks in the aesophagus 3 – 4 cms. apart. These were removed surgically later on Monday afternoon. One surprising outcome from this was the fact one of the hooks disintegrated completely as it was being removed.

The swan is now doing well.

We really didn’t expect today’s (5th January) rescue to be quite so difficult. The call came in late afternoon the day before, and related to two still very brown cygnets in a reene (spelling as per Avon and Somerset!), which runs parallel to a busy road linking Weston St. Lawrence (western outskirts of Bristol) and a major industrial estate in Avonmouth, and separated from it by a narrow strip of rough grass. Nearby is a gypsy encampment …. It seems several times motorists had been seen to stop and move the cygnets off the road but all too frequently, they just drove around them.

When we arrived the birds were on the grass, but much closer to the water than to the road – already, we feared the worst, unless of course, they recognised bread as food. We were right to be fearful; these were two very wild cygnets, and they clearly realised something was ‘up’ even as we got out of the car. Worse still, the content of the reene was quite disgusting – the quality of the water was highly questionable, and with litter comprising squashed drinks containers, tin cans, dirty rags etc. etc. and by probing it was obvious there was a very thick layer of very soft sediment on the bottom; our rescue options were becoming increasingly limited by the minute. Finally, the combination of the steepness of the bank and the width of the reene meant we were just not able to reach either of the birds, even with a fully extended crook. We should also point out the other incentive not to do anything foolish was that, while it had actually stopped raining, it was very cold with a strong wind from the north west.

We decided we needed to ‘persuade’ these two small birds back along this disgusting ditch to the end where there was a very large clump of reeds and brambles which would impede their movement, and where their view of us would be somewhat limited. By waving our nets behind them we managed to get them into just the position we wanted them and with the crook pushed stealthily through the reeds we managed to catch the smaller of the two and get him wrapped and bagged and into the car very quickly. By this time the second baby had come out of the undergrowth and was paddling back towards the other end of the reene so the struggle to make another capture began all over again.

It was at this point we remembered the original report contained a reference to a small steel bridge over the ditch, and there it was in front of us with the second swan heading for it – one of us managed to reach the middle of it before the swan which was then further encouraged to advance by shaking a net behind it. A few seconds later, and with the aid of the crook, we had succeeded in making our second capture. Somewhat out of breath we returned to the car, and reunited no.2 with his very subdued sibling

We decided these two young swans were not yet old enough to face the big wide world out there and the problems they might face even although from the marks on the backs of their necks, their Dad had obviously thought otherwise. So what should we do? We had three choices; we could take them home to roam our large dishevelled garden and spend their nights in the pond enclosure, we could take them to the National Swan Sanctuary in London or they could go to West Hatch Wildlife hospital near Taunton; it was the last which made the greatest sense. As luck would have it, this worked out very well; West Hatch were holding a lot of swans, two of which were deemed ready for release; this we were able to do by using an alternative route home – via Chew Valley Lake. A satisfactory end to a hard day’s work.

If you have rescued swans for any length of time, quite quickly you accumulate a list comprising a number of places you have to visit more frequently than others; we tend to call them ‘black spots’. One such place is Bute East Dock in Cardiff, which we usually refer to as Atlantic Wharf. The point about this place is that there is only one point in its whole perimeter, and indeed in the adjacent canal system where catching a distressed swan is fairly easy; and that is the slip way in the car-park to the nearby Wharf public house. In fact it is very rare to have a choice where a rescue is to be carried out, but on this occasion, we tried, and succeeded in ‘engineering’ it this way. In the event, it was actually very easy, because, the family, being ‘urban’ swans knew all about bread as a food item.

This particular rescue began with a call from an employee at County Hall indicating one of the three cygnets was seriously distressed with fishing line trailing from his beak – line which from a distance appeared then to be wrapped around a wing, and he was struggling desperately to free himself. It took at least an hour before we could get there starting with the approach to the dock just to the rear of County Hall. As you would expect, Sod’s Law saw to it that the swans were on the far side of the dock, but were coming our way – but not to our preferred ‘beaching’ area! So, we drove back to the Wharf pub, by which time, again, according to the precepts of Sod’s Law, the swans were all close in around County Hall, that is, where we had been five minutes earlier!

The day was one of those when it really felt like winter had arrived with a cold lazy wind from the east, and so getting really wet – really really wet – was not an option. Hence the absolute necessity of trying to get the tackled cygnet to the slipway. Our bread supply was low having, between us, just over half a loaf already broken up into small pieces. Equipped with just over half of this, I set off, already having lost contact with one of my fingers due to the cold, to walk back towards County Hall. As it turned out, I had to pass this building and continue across the southern end of the dock. Two cygnets were quite close in, and with the aid of binoculars, they seemed to be free of tackle; the third one was much further out, and definitely a bit listless. For a few moments, it looked as if this plan was going to fail. I decided to go back to the car, hoping to entice the whole family to follow me with some precious crumbs of bread. Once I had re-passed County Hall, the swans – all five of them – came in really close to take the very few morsels I offered them. By now they were near enough for me to see which cygnet was carrying the line. I accelerated up the dock side, throwing just the odd bit of bread over the edge every few yards – just enough to keep them interested. This continued all the way to the start of the canal system, and the small basin in which the slip way is located.

After that, it was very straightforward – well the capture was – but removing the line which totalled just under 8 metres altogether, was a different story. With both of us kneeling beside him on the very hard and cold concrete it took about 10 minutes in total to disentangle him. He was an amazing cygnet. Having been caught he stayed quietly between us and didn’t struggle at all; it was as if he knew we were trying to help him. Now and again he made little calling noises to his family waiting patiently on the slipway only a few yards away and neither adult appeared at all concerned at what we might have been doing to one of their babies. As with the cygnet we believe they knew we were there to help him. Eventually, we managed to unravel him by following the line coming from inside his beak, carefully unwinding it several times from around one leg and, worst of all trying to remove the majority of it from his left wing without damaging his feathering. We were concerned there could have been a hook on the end of the line he had swallowed as it was impossible to pull it free and to force it could have caused damage to the oesophagus. As we released our hold on him he got up, shook himself and waddled down the slipway to be greeted by the rest of the family. To make sure there were no ‘hard feelings’ we fed them our last remaining bits of bread which they gobbled up as if nothing had happened.

Calls to Bute East Dock (Atlantic Wharf) in Cardiff have not been uncommon over the years, but usually they come from either Amanda or Yvonne whom we can describe as our ‘eyes’ in the area, and they miss nothing which happens on the dock!

The call on 28th October from Amanda was to say Yvonne was in a dreadful state having just rescued a young adult female swan from the north end of the dock following a concerted attack by not only the resident adult pair, but also their cygnets. Having got her head stuck over the top of some vegetation growing from the side of the dock wall, the rescue itself was quite straightforward, although one did get a little wet!

Having had this kind of experience, swans are usually a bit subdued, but then, wouldn’t you be …?! Anyway, she was taken into care, and settled down at our sanctuary, and was soon eating.

Two days later, we had a call from just outside Ross on Wye; a cygnet had clipped some nearby telephone cables,  had landed on the flat roof, and appeared to be  ‘stuck’. Well, that’s over 40 miles away, but we did our best. As we arrived, we were met by a cygnet actually walking up the lane to meet us! Chris told us he had dropped off the roof, literally, seconds before we arrived. In the circumstances, capture wasn’t a problem, and he came back to Newport with us. His injuries were very superficial – the odd graze to his feet, but badly hurt pride!

In general, swans flourish better if they have company, but to start with, these two birds pretty well ignored each other. However, not for long! Even although their origins lie at least 50 miles apart, such a close bond has now formed between them; they are totally at ease in each other’s company – they are constantly chatting to one another, and indeed to anyone who brings them more food!

Sooner or later they will have to go – together, of course – but when it happens, it will be a terrible wrench. That said, this represents two very successful rescues.