CJ As you Like it - August 2012

"Proud to be British" by Pinkstar aka Sara

My page was based on "bird carers" - the bird on the left featured a swan that myself and friends had spotted whilst out narrowboating on the Bridgewater Canal in Runcorn, Cheshire.  We had stopped the boat to have some lunch.  We were surrounded by a family of swans, parents and their almost grown cygnet swans - they still had their grey feathers.  There were 5 cygnets but one was having difficulty eating.  We noticed that the cygnet put his beak in the canal, one leg came out of the water repeatedly and on closer inspection with a camera, we could then see he had fishing wire wrapped around his leg and there was a coloured fishing float in the water too .....

There was no way we were going to attempt to get the wire off the leg as the parents were aggressive towards us as we tried to separate it from the family.  One of the parents bit one of the girls on her bare arm without warning so we backed off.  She was slightly shocked as she had been leaning against the side of the boat watching others trying to separate the family.  I went to look in the boat cupboard to see if we had a phone number for the local RSPCA centre.  We found a phone number in one of our canal map books.  One of the girls rang the number and it was one of those answerphones where you have to listen to a series of questions and push x button for x service.  Eventually Boagie got through and explained exactly where we were ie which canal and tried to give a landmark - a passerby had noticed the cygnet too and was able to tell us exactly whereabouts we were and also tell us where the nest was. 

A few hours later we had another call from the RSPCA Inspector who told us he couldnt find the family but had found the nest and was going to have to go and get a bigger cage for the cygnet and take it back to the centre to have the hook and wire removed. 

Another call later from the same RSPCA Inspector who told us that he had managed to remove the cygnet without upsetting the parents, get it back to the centre, put the bird out, examine it and discovered that there were 3 fishing hooks altogether with one down its throat and get them ALL out without too much trouble.  He managed to bring it round and put it back on the nest and the parents accepted it back into the fold with no problems which we were all eternally grateful as if the cygnet had been away from the family too long, the parents would had seen it off.

The 2nd page is about the human dove-like cyclist soaring into the air at the beginning of the London Olympic 2012 and the reason behind using human doves and not real doves. The British really DO care about bird and animal cruelty.