Swans cause chaos on rail lines, so I learnt how they catch them

The first thing you notice when you get within a metre or so of a swan is how large they are. I am being eyeballed by three from the corner of their straw-laden pen at the Swan Sanctuary, in Shepperton, Surrey. Giving the eyeballs alongside them is Sally Thompson, a rather terse keeper who is, initially, just as intimidating as the majestic creatures in her charge.
I have just undergone a crash course in how to confidently and safely handle a swan.
“It’s 95 per cent confidence,” Thompson says as I flinch away from the swing of a long white neck. The female bird — a pen — I have targeted for this role play is the smallest of the three, she reminds me.
“It’s about having the balls to do it,” Thompson, 54, adds. “They rarely bite … they have to be very stressed to bite.” I make a mental note that it appears quite the stressful situation, for both swan and man.
In one hand I have a blue zip-up bag, which, within a couple of minutes, will (we hope) become a swan carrier.
Last week it emerged that swans are one of the most prolific trespassers on railway lines, and so Network Rail staff are being given lessons at this sanctuary on how to catch safely and release them. Thompson is giving us our own quickfire demonstration of the specialist training — without the added danger of 750 volts that power our railway lines.
In the 12 months to April, Network Rail recorded 172 incidents of swans and other large birds on the tracks, behind only sheep (177) and deer (350). As well as being dangerous for the animals involved, trespassing can cause delays on the country’s already beleaguered rail network.
I grab the swan sturdily around its wings, just as Thompson instructed. They contain small bony spurs (or what the staff call a “fighting knob”) that can do the most damage to another swan, dog, or journalist on assignment.
These three swans were rescued separately from the wild and will be released once they have been nursed back to full health. The Swan Sanctuary, which has been run by four generations of the same family since it opened in the early 1980s, receives calls 24 hours a day about birds that often have been attacked by other animals or, recently, humans with catapults. Injuries from fishing hooks and cars or trains are also recurring issues.
With my swan under control, I kneel either side of it, holding its wings firmly in place while the bag is prepared. My fear, which subsides when I discover how soft and pleasant-smelling the birds are, is born from childhood when I was constantly told swans could “break your arm”.
Gemma Nelson, 33, who runs the sanctuary with her mother, Melanie, 57, laughs. “It would only break your arm if you were a small, rickets-ridden Victorian child,” she says. She believes it is because of this myth that the protected birds become targets. “They can get annoyed and look aggressive but that’s because, by lakes or canals, we are walking through their living room,” she says.
Nelson’s grandmother, Dorothy Beeson, who founded the sanctuary, was appointed an MBE for her work in 2015. She rescued her first swan when it became tangled in a fishing line near her home in Egham, Surrey, in 1979, and it soon became her full-time job. She died in 2020 aged 72 and Melanie and Gemma took over, with Gemma’s daughter, Lucy, 10, also taking an active role during the summer holidays.
Finally, the swan is placed into her bag, where it can now be handled safely or transported for release. Mission accomplished.
There are now about 500 swans, geese and ducks on site. Some will make it back into the wild, others are too injured and will live out their days on a large lake on the grounds. The sanctuary’s longest resident is Wally, a whooper swan who is one of the few birds to allow the keepers to stroke him. Wally was a house pet until his elderly owner died a number of years ago.
While a growing number of railway staff are learning how to handle safely the swans that make their way on to the tracks, it is humans who remain the biggest nuisance — with 19,300 trespassing incidents in the 12 months to April, or one roughly every half-hour.
Helen Hamlin, Network Rail’s operations chief, said: “Trespassing on the railway is a serious offence that causes delays to thousands of trains every year and can be very costly for people — causing death and life-changing injuries due to the railways’ many hidden dangers. This summer, when we see trespass at its peak, our message is clear to whoever you are: child, adult, dog walker, holiday maker or beast — stay off the tracks.”