My First Case From Start To Finish

Last week, for the first time, I got to see a case through from rescue to release.
It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

The day I started at the Swan Rescue, I got a call from Mary who had received an emergency call from a woman in Connemara who had found an injured swan on her land.
We drove out to their farm that day (a beautiful kestrel swooped right past the windscreen! :D) to assess the situation.
It was a young female, approximately a year old - she had a grey bill and still had some grey fluff under her wings.
The woman who found her had put her in a nice quiet space in the garage with straw and some grain based food in water and had fenced her in to protect her. She had got stuck in a fence after colliding with some over head power lines. Mary examined her and found a huge wound on her wing, with half of the bone exposed! It appeared to be a relatively old wound, though there was no sign of infection. She had some other fresh wounds on her other wing too and was extremely thin.
We thanked the family and brought her back to the sanctuary for the night.
The next day we brought her to the vet to get a full examination. She was prescribed a course of antibiotics and time to rest at the sanctuary.
She responded well to the antibiotics, which Mary administered daily, and she was eating well. She quickly recovered her strength - every morning at feeding time she would already be standing right in front of the gate waiting and giving out and would nearly snatch the food dish right out of my hand!

She stayed with us for 9 weeks and put on plenty of weight. By the time it came to release her I could barely lift her out to the van! She looked very confused - the poor thing probably thought  she was getting more injections!

We brought her down to The Claddagh to be released. There are no breeding pairs there and plenty of food and an opportunity to meet a mate, so there is no aggression. Here, she will have the time to recover fully and learn to be independent again. She may never be a good flier, so we could not release her back to where she came from.
I didn't realise that I would miss her when she left, but she took up so much room in our tiny sanctuary that it felt very empty with just the 6 ducklings!

Here is the moment she became a Claddagh swan:

Galway & Claddagh Swan Rescue

Registered Charity no: CHY 14904
Emergency Ph: 086 382 6471

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