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A Swan FamilyEarly one morning in mid-May, I received a phone call from a worried member of the public who had just arrived in her office overlooking the River Severn in Shrewsbury and was watching the water rising rapidly around a female swan incubating her eggs; as she had been observing the pair ever since they started to sit on the nest, she knew that the eggs were imminently due to hatch (incubation lasts normally 36 days). I phoned one of the RSPCA Inspectors who straightaway organised a boat. A quite dramatic rescue then ensued. It is one thing to catch one healthy uninjured swan who is quite capable of flying - it is quite another thing altogether to catch two healthy uninjured swans who are also desperately defending their nest of eggs, by that time just starting to hatch. All credit to the Inspectors who caught both parents before scooping up the ten eggs. By the time they arrived at our Centre, two cygnets had hatched. We put them all into a large, quiet, warm shed with food and water where they could recover from their ordeal, the cygnets and remaining eggs snuggled into a large duvet at the back. We had resolved not to disturb them at all for the rest of the day, but knowing how swans will often ignore their eggs once they are moved like this, I peeped in around 8.00 to see whether she had taken to the two hatchlings. She was standing near them, but a little apart, with the result that the two little cygnets and remaining eggs were icy cold. I brought the cygnets at once into the house and put them close by the Rayburn. I had the dilemma of whether or not to put a heat lamp over the remaining eggs. If I did, it would have to be sufficiently low to have any effect, in which case it would be too low to allow the mother to sit on the eggs if she decided to do so. If I didn't, I risked losing all the others through cold. Reasoning that she could move the eggs if she wanted, I hung a heat lamp over the eggs above the duvet Early the next morning, the two little cygnets by the Rayburn had perked up considerably. Venturing down to the shed, I saw that one more egg, slightly away from the others, was in the process of hatching but the little chick inside was cold and weak. It, too, was brought up to the Rayburn where I carefully peeled away the remaining shell and snuggled it into some warm bedding. I took the other two down to reunite them with mum and dad, and later that afternoon, reunited the third one also. One more newly-hatched cygnet had to be similarly warmed up by the Rayburn before the mother finally got over the stress of their ordeal the day before and began to bond with her brood. The male, meanwhile, conscientiously stood guard and took periodic swipes at me with his hefty wings whenever I had to venture into the shed! Now that the pair seemed to have settled and had begun to drink and feed and take some interest in their offspring, I intervened no more but still kept the family in the shed. On the Thursday morning early, a reporter from Radio Shropshire (reporting live from the scene) and I both watched with anticipation as I opened the shed door and waited to see who and how many would emerge. I have to say I was really thrilled to see seven little baby cygnets trooping out from the shed after mum and dad, waddle their way across the grass and plop into the pool where they bobbed around on the water like corks, enjoying their new-found freedom. In the end, only three eggs failed to hatch, and of all those that did hatch, all survived. The story doesn't quite end there. We intended to release them by their nest-site on the river just as soon as the water level had dropped, but this was not to be for another three weeks. In the meantime, the RSPCA brought us another orphaned cygnet, exactly the same age as ours, from Wales - no history, just found all on its own on a riverbank, cold and frightened. With my helper making a scuffle to divert the parents' attention, I popped the little orphan in amongst the others on the water. I don't know if the parents ever knew what had happened, or if they did, they just didn't care, as from that moment on they reared it along with their own. After their release, I kept getting regular updates on their progress, as the lady who works in our bread shop just down the road from Cuan House, lives near the river and was delighted to be able to keep an eye on them.
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Wildlife the charity has treated this year includes: Ducks, Swans, Other Water Birds, Raptors, Owls, Game Birds, Corvids, Pigeons, Doves, Garden Birds, Hedgehogs, Badgers, Squirrels, Otters, Foxes, Deer, Bats, Rabbits and many other species.