Will there be a happy ending for our lonely swan at Caerlaverock?
The young whooper swan arrived in Caerlaverock from Iceland with its family last year but was unable to return this spring after damaging its feathers.
As a result, the sad little cygnet has spent a summer on the Solway all alone.
Now, as the whooper swans begin to arrive from Iceland for the winter, our staff are keeping their fingers crossed that the bored bird will be joined by its buddies soon.
Engagement officer at WWT Caerlaverock Faith Hillier said:
“The poor swan has been on the Whooper Pond at Caerlaverock all by itself over the summer but the whooper swans have started arriving so it's no longer all by itself.
“Thankfully the swan has started re-growing its flight feathers so we are hoping that it should be able to migrate back to Iceland next spring.”
Staff at Caerlaverock work hard to prepare for the arrival of up to 300 whooper swans during October, cleaning and maintaining multiple ponds and fields across the reserve so that their winter stay is a comfortable one. The swans, which migrate from Iceland in family groups with their cygnets, are also fed twice a day until they depart around the end of March.
The lonesome swan, which has not been ringed yet, can still be found on Whooper Pond.
The centre is open seven days a week 364 days a year and is situated nine miles south east of Dumfries.
