Sheep rescue

It was calmly standing up to its knees in a shallow part right at the back. I called Wendy Hermon who organises our Swan Support Rescue Centre as I knew she held the numbers of other rescue organisations. She and her husband Steve, who is experienced in these situations, decided to come out with a canoe. They could not reach far enough back to get a line round the sheep, so we sent for the Fire Service Animal Rescue Unit, who turned up along with a fire engine as well. They were eventually able to get a line around it and tried to get it onto their small raft, but it managed to free itself and leapt away. There followed an exciting 20 minutes of chasing it around the garden and almost back into the river. Luckily it became trapped in a small space in the debris and was hauled out. We then had to wait for a shepherd to come and collect it How it came to be on the loose and from where it came is a mystery. It had been seen in the Swan Hotel car park
earlier in the day and must have panicked and jumped into the Thames, swimming across buoyed up by the
lanolin and air in its fleece.

An hour later we had to go up to Abingdon lock to look for five abandoned half grown cygnets, which had been seen on the Mill Stream. After a 2 ½ hour search, my colleague Joanne found three of them by Abingdon Bridge. By this time, she had walked close to four miles. I cared for them for a couple of days (after receiving permission to do so) while we looked for the other two. Sadly we did not find them, so the three lucky ones were transported to our treatment centre where they will now grow up until they are old enough to be released – when their wings are fully developed – which is sometime in the late Autumn or early next year.