Today's high winds resulted in a trauma and rescue, for a young swan seeking food and shelter from the gales. After entering Popeye and Penny's territory, the pair of them promptly chased the young swan down the river, it made the mistake of going onto their island but Penny was having none of it !
She pinned the young swan to the ground and was joined by Popeye. Normally I would not have interfered, but I knew the young swan was exhausted and was too weak to escape which was all it wanted to do. I picked it up and put it in the river 20 yards away from Penny, to give it a chance to get back to the sea. It was pursued and made another big mistake by going into the harbour, only trapping itself where it was again chased and attacked on the concrete steps by Popeye.
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| photo courtesy of Dave Shillabeer |
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| photo courtesy of Dave Shillabeer |
I had no choice but to take it home with the help of Dave Shillabeer who was on hand with his car and mobile phone to call the Scottish SPCA.
After putting it in the Aviary it immediately started to eat the grass on hand, it was ravenous and definitely underweight.
I pulled a lot more grass and it munched away happily (short video clip below), later - Simon from the Scottish SPCA arrived to take it to join other young swans at a good location along the coast.
A good outcome to a potentially fatal encounter with our Swans !
"Normally I would not have interfered"
ReplyDeleteNearly fell of my seat there....classic :)
You are obviously unaware of the numerous times every year that I have seen and sometimes recorded swans being chased out of the river. Most times they get chased back out to sea with no problems. However if they happen to crash land on the main road or bridge, or as in this instance was weak, trapped and unable to escape, then common sense dictates what action I take.
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