Magical creatures Wild swans

AN APPRECIATION OF WILD SWANS

You can hear them before you see them. Wild swans appear balletic when captured in flight or serenely gliding on water at a distance, but up close, really close, they flap and honk and peck and bicker. And thanks to the passion and commitment of one man, we can see this spectacle of wild birds every winter…

The gulf stream keeps the UK uniquely temperate for its northerly latitude, making a much shorter and, therefore, safer migration for wild birds from Arctic lands. Sir Peter Scott, son of the famous Antarctic explorer, saw that there was an opportunity to create wildlife reserves here and founded the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire in 1946.

In autumn, as daylight reduces, wild swans in their thousands find their way to these reserves. In a hide among the cacophony of honks and squawks, you are so close to the water, you can forget they’re wild birds. But they are not the haughty semi-tame mute swans resident in parks and village ponds. These are bewick’s from Arctic Russia and whooper swans from Iceland. There’s little to distinguish them; the noisier whooper bill has a yellow wedge while bewick’s have a smaller W shape. But each bird’s bill pattern is unique, like a fingerprint, enabling those who study them to pick out individuals or pairs as they mate for life, earning them their place as a symbol of fidelity. At Martin Mere in Lancashire – a scenic 600-acre flatland of water flickering in low winter sunshine – I met Flash, a whooper, and his mate and heard his story. Swans are big, often clumsy birds that sometimes collide with power cables. A farmer found Flash (the name came later) with a burned and broken wing, reserve staff fed him, gave him antibiotics and soon Flash was back out there fighting his corner. But when the swans left in the spring, he stayed on at Martin Mere. His mate left, too, but come winter she was one of the first to return, greeting Flash enthusiastically.

I watched a family with five nervy cygnets, cautious and reserved, skirting the edges of the honking melee on the lake, weighing up how it all works. The cygnets will stay with their parents until they migrate, supervised by a few older swans on the arduous journey of up to 2,500 miles.

The stats are astonishing: whoopers weigh 10 kilos or more yet with a 2.5 metre wing span can travel a phenomenal 60mph with the wind behind them, averaging around 45mph on the journey. Seeing swans swoop in from the sky, it is clear to see how jumbo jets replicate their movements – the wing angle changes to brake in the air, legs released; but they’re not graceful like a heron or menacing like a bird of prey, there’s an endearing clumsiness to wild swans. And they seem made for winter.

You can see wild swans until spring on WWT reserves from Dumfries to East Anglia; find out more at wwt.org.uk.