This is a piccie Io took of the three of them using her phone.
Initially they all looked ok. But as Io watched they climbed out onto the bank and she saw that one of the cygnets had a huge wound on its leg that was in Io’s words ‘pouring blood’.Io made the decision to call the RSPCA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to see if they could get someone out to help. They waited near the swans until an RSPCA volunteer arrived. The volunteer in question was unsure of what to do and phoned his boss for instructions.
In the end Io and Damian using RSPCA equipment caught the cygnet for the volunteer. Io says the poor thing seems to have been savaged by a dog. In addition to the bleeding wound there were also some ‘puncture wounds’.
The volunteer took the baby away to the shelter to be assessed by a vet. He said that if it was not too badly injured it would be treated and looked after until it was fit to be released. He did warn that if its injuries were too bad the vet would euthanize the poor thing.
Io was reasonably confident, she says that the baby was still moving around under its own steam and was eating before she caught it. Unfortunately, we have had no more news, Io has tried phoned the shelter a number of times but has not yet managed to talk to the people who were responsible for our cygnet. I will let you all know as soon as we know anything.
Now a couple of final photos Io took of mother swan and her remaining baby. I am probably imagining it but they seem rather forlorn to me.
