Dealer reunites with Croupier!
When Croupier arrived in December without Dealer, his long-term partner of 19 years, we feared the worse. It is rare for long-term partnerships to dissolve whilst both birds are still alive and we therefore resigned ourselves to the likelihood that Dealer had not made the migration. You can therefore imagine our surprise when Dealer flew into Slimbridge this week and reunited with Croupier, some six weeks after his arrival! The Gamblers are back together! During those six weeks, we managed to catch Croupier and when we X-rayed him, discovered that he was carrying a shotgun pellet in his neck. We wondered whether the absence of Dealer indicated that she hadn’t had a similarly luck escape…. Perhaps a shooting incident somewhere along the flyway panicked the pair and caused their separation. Wild weather may also have culminated in their temporary split. This long-standing couple have reared and brought to Slimbridge 29 cygnets over the years, continuing a family dynasty that stretches back to the sixties.
Croupier & Dealer reunited (by S. Heaven)
