Dawlish News

It has emerged that one of the four cygnets born to the famous black swans of Dawlish this year owes its life to waterfowl warden Derek Porter, who gave the young swan the kiss of life after it almost drowned.

Derek, 49, was clearing out the chick pen at the bird enclosure on the Brook last month when someone knocked on the window saying the seven-week-old cygnet was in trouble.

Further upstream he found the parent birds on an island and one of their offspring motionless under the water.

Derek told the Gazette: ‘The cygnet must have been pecking under the water for whatever titbits were around the island and in the crevices of the rocks it must have opened its beak got it stuck.

‘By the time I got there it wasn’t moving so I thought it had drowned. I didn’t have time to go back and get my kit so I just jumped in and the father attacked me straightaway, which is something he always does anyway.

‘I managed to fend him off and retrieve the cygnet but there was no life at all in him so, unfortunately for him, I blew down his beak.

‘There was still nothing but a lot of water was coming out of him so I swung him like you would when a lamb is first born.

‘I breathed in his nostrils the second time and then all of a sudden his eyes moved so I just carried on for about 20 minutes, massaging his chest, and he basically came round.

‘I think if I’d have got there even two seconds later he would have died.

‘I took him back down to his parents, who attacked me again, and he swam off quite happily, it was brilliant, absolutely fantastic and it’s lovely to see him alive.’

The cygnet was lucky that Derek, a father of two who has been warden for five years, has plenty of animal husbandry behind him, although he confessed to never having given the kiss of life to a swan before.

‘I don’t think he’ll ever forget it,’ he chuckled.

The black swan population in Dawlish currently numbers ten adults and four cygnets. The town council is to formally congratulate Derek on saving the young bird’s life.

More good news is that the bar-headed goose chicks born three weeks ago, and which were struggling to survive after bad weather forced their parents to all but abandon the nest, have been rescued and are doing well in the chick pen.