Murmurs of agreement followed, and then someone piped up: ‘Have you warned him how aggressive it is?’
Prompted by this reminder, Mrs Lovell turned to me, ‘Yes … he does seem somewhat vicious. He doesn’t seem able to walk or fly, so I guess it’s his only way of defending himself, but he certainly warns us off. So no one has dared go near him, but I’m sure you know what you are doing.’ Then addressing the source of the comment, she added, ‘I’m sure the vet knows exactly what to do.’
If only I did, I thought. I briefly imagined that the next phone call Mrs Lovell made would be a request for an ambulance for the vet who had been savaged by a swan. To my giddy mind, it almost sounded like the basis of a nursery rhyme: ‘There was an old lady that called an ambulance, she called the ambulance to rescue the vet, she called the vet to rescue the swan …’
‘Is there anything you need, Jon?’ Mrs Lovell enquired, bringing me back to reality.
‘I’ve brought a small dog cage, which I’ll put it in, if I can catch it, so if you could be on standby with that it would be a great help.’
‘Of course,’ she said eagerly, pleased to have a role in the adventure. ‘And what do you mean, if you catch him? I have every faith in you, I bet you’ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times!’
I decided not to respond to her statement. Sensing the anticipation in the crowd, only a successful capture, ideally following a dramatic stand-off, would do – and though they would probably settle for me sustaining a dinner-party-anecdote-worthy injury, I felt they were basically willing me to succeed.
As I neared the swan, it fixated on me and immediately started a tirade of aggressive hissing in an attempt to intimidate the perceived threat I presented. It worked. I stopped at an exaggerated distance from my patient, nervous that he might suddenly lunge at me, before turning to the expectant crowd and squeezing out a smile to suggest that everything was going to plan.
I considered my tools. If I threw a towel over the swan’s head, it could give me a brief window in which to pounce, but then again, if I missed, I would probably just prime it even more for my additional offensive manoeuvre. Trying on the gauntlets, I found they actually inhibited my sense of touch, which seemed important in not inadvertently crushing the bird, and more so than any need to protect my hands. So that meant it was just me versus the swan, and I suddenly felt very exposed. In order to successfully restrain the bird, I would need one hand on the top of its neck, and the other wrapped around its body, holding it close to my chest to secure the wings. If I could manage that, then ideally I would grab the swan’s feet as well with the hand that was wrapped around the body. What felt most natural was to hold the neck with my left hand and the body with my right, which fortunately corresponded with the way the bird was positioned. This was all good theory, but as I stood there eyeballing the swan, I had no idea how much resistance it would put up or whether I would be able to restrain it. There could be all number of possible outcomes, most of which, as I saw it, would leave me with some sort of injury.
I inched closer to the bird, as slowly, steadily and subtly as I could, gradually getting within pouncing distance, but my movements didn’t go unnoticed and were met by an increased fervour of hissing. Nevertheless I prepared my assault, rehearsing the plan over and over in my mind to reassure and convince myself of its efficacy, gradually positioning my hands and my body. I could feel twenty pairs of eyes glaring into the back of my head. I took a deep breath … and sprang at the swan.
My sudden change of speed afforded me a momentary upper hand, and years of rugby had given me a muscle memory of the tackle, which now came to my aid. And so seconds later, as much to my surprise as the swan’s, I found myself in secure possession of it, and although it tried to put up a fight, it was actually too weak to really present me with a problem. I clambered to my feet, in a very ungainly fashion for fear of releasing my hold, and wandered over to where Mrs Lovell was standing with the cage.
Murmurs of awe and wonderment broke out among the crowd, with an undercurrent of quiet disappointment that the stand-off had been so short-lived. However, with the bird secured in the cage a ripple of applause broke out in my honour, before the crowd started dispersing, the spectacle now over. Mr Lovell retrieved my towels and gauntlets as I loaded the cage onto my passenger seat, and a few spectators wandered over to enquire what imminent fate the swan could expect. I told them I’d be taking it back to the practice for a medical assessment and hospitalization, until either it was well enough to be released or we could otherwise send it on to a wildlife sanctuary for rehabilitation, which is in fact what happened. Content with this answer, they encouraged me on my way for the plan to be implemented without delay.
I climbed into my car to a barrage of hissing from the passenger seat, reminding me, in case I had forgotten, of my unusual passenger, whose cage I now surreptitously covered with a towel to shut him up. Then amid waves of polite farewell, I set off, at once relieved and relaxed with how the visit had turned out.
Driving back to the practice, I reflected that my first weekend on call had been something of a baptism of fire. Then, looking at the clock on the dashboard, I realized I was only halfway through it.
Swans: fast facts
Cygnus olor: The mute swan
Distribution: Native to most of Europe and Asia. Introduced to North America, Australasia and Southern Africa.
Description: One of the heaviest flying birds in the world. The mute swan is the largest of the six swan species.
Names: The male is called a ‘cob’, the female a ‘pen’, and their young a ‘cygnet’. A group of swans is called a ‘bevy’.
Life span: About 15 years in the wild.
Habitat: Temperate areas, shallow lakes and slow-flowing rivers. (Incidentally, a lake is distinguished from a pond by a swan’s ability to take off and land on it.)
Diet: Aquatic vegetation, cropped grass, molluscs, small fish, frogs and worms.
Incubation: 36 days. The female lays 4–10 eggs, which both sexes incubate.
Wingspan: 208–238 cm.
Weight: 225 grams at birth, reaching 8.5–11.8 kg as adults.
Growth: Cygnets stay with their parents until 4–5 months, when they are able to fly and will join a large flock. Breeding won’t begin until 2 years.
Body temperature: 39–40 °C.
The ‘Royal connection’: Historically, swans were domesticated for food, and ownership was determined by a mark on their webs or beak, which were then registered with the Crown; any bird not marked automatically became Crown property. Today the British Monarch retains the technical right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water, but the Queen only exercises her ownership over certain stretches of the Thames and its tributaries, which is shared with the Worshipful Company of Vintners and the Worshipful Company of Dyers, who together take part in an annual ‘swan-upping’, where all mute swans are rounded up, ringed and released.
Predators: Adults are rarely preyed on because of their aggression in defence, but foxes, coyotes, lynxes and bears pose a potential threat.
Conservation: Swans were nearly hunted to extinction between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, but protection measures led to a dramatic increase in numbers. Another peril arose during the 1960s–1980s because of lead poisoning from ingestion of fishing sinkers. Their numbers have since recovered, but they are still categorized as of ‘amber’ concern by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. There are currently around 6,400 breeding pairs in the UK, with 74,000 wintering here. There are about 500,000 birds worldwide, 350,000 of which are in the former Soviet Union. For more information on the mute swan, or to help support and protect them, visit www.rspb.org.uk.