AJAY TEGALA: I was just having my morning coffee in the kitchen
and I heard this distant kind of goose-like honking outside so I
ran outside. Ah yes and there they are. My first whooper swans
of the autumn. Ah they're quite a long way away but ah that
distinctive sound I haven't heard it for six months but
there they are fresh from Iceland. Ah it's so good to see
them. Welcome back swans.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Did you know that the UK is home to three
different species of swan and that one crosses a Siberian
Tundra to get here? Well today, swan fan and wetland ranger Ajay
Tegala is taking us to the Ouse Washes at Welney in Norfolk, to
see if we can find this increasingly rare and
hardworking swan amongst thousands of its hooping
cousins.
Welcome to Wild Tales, finding the Tundra swans.
AJAY TEGALA: Every autumn, over my house, I hear resonant calls
that sound a bit like a brass band tuning up.
The arrival of hundreds of wild whooper swans is an anticipated
and celebrated moment in my calendar. But there is one swan
species I very rarely see. A swan that has eluded me for the
last few winters. I'm determined that this year I'll see them
again. The Bewick's swan.
Back in January 2021, I spotted a flock of swans in the field
next to my house. Looking through a telescope from the
kitchen window, there were two Bewick's swans.
Sometimes known as the Tundra swan for its epic migration, or
the small swan, the once populous bird is becoming
increasingly rare. I wanted to speak to someone who knew
Bewick's swans in extraordinary detail. Someone who might
understand why I was so desperate to see them again.
DAFILA SCOTT: I remember drawing the birds outside my father's
studio window when I was quite small and that eventually led to
painting.
AJAY TEGALA: This is Dafila Scott, an artist and zoologist.
She spent her childhood at Slimbridge, a wetland wildlife
reserve, as her father, Sir Peter Scott, was the founder of
the Wildfowl And Wetlands Trust. So, from a young age, birds were
a big part of her life.
We sit in the cafe on the edge of Wicken Fen, with the wetlands
out the window and the bustle of warm life surrounding us.
DAFILA SCOTT: February 1964, my father decided to bring the tame
whistling swans from the collection to the pond in front
of his house. And almost immediately, the wild Bewick's
swans, which had been coming to the Severn Estuary for some
time, came down onto the pond in front of his house. And this was
very exciting.
And he noticed that the one that came the first day was different
from the one that came the second day. And that the pattern
of the black and yellow on the bills was different. And so he
drew them. He then started to record all the individuals that
came that winter.
So there were 24 that first winter, and he gave them names
because that was easier to remember than numbers. And then
the next year, when they came back again, some of them brought
their signets with them. I think it was that year that I was ill
and from school and I had to convalesce indoors.
And so what was to do but look out the window at these
wonderful swans? And I got completely hooked identifying
them and drawing the patterns and recognizing them. Watching
their behaviour, seeing, you know, who had cygnets, who
didn't, who was mated with who, and who was dominant on the
pond. Anyway, it was completely riveting.
AJAY TEGALA: For Dafila, drawing the swans was a necessity as
well as a love.
DAFILA SCOTT: Because in those days, there weren't cameras that
would focus in on individuals, you know, halfway across the
pond. So you had to look through a telescope or large binoculars
and then draw the pattern. And my father had devised...
a sort of cycler-styled face. So you drew the two sides and the
front view as meticulously as you could. And he was very
precise about it. You had to get it right. But it was very good
practice for looking and then drawing. So now I'm a painter.
But I also like watching the behaviour of animals still very
much. And Bewick's swans are, of course, my favourite animal.
AJAY TEGALA: And so the ones that you knew as individuals, it
was obviously this precise pattern of black and yellow that
you were drawing. And that's how you got to know them by their
bills.
DAFILA SCOTT: Yes, that's right. And also just the way the animal
carries its head. So some of them, we used to have one called
Pussycat, which had her head in the air all the time. She was
always looking around with her head in the air. So they have
their individual characteristics and you get to know them. And
that's, it's very good fun.
I mean if you're, you know, if you're really watching a flock
and you get to know them all it's it's just wonderful
following them. It's very exciting.
AJAY TEGALA: I guess it's quite similar to, I'm lucky i work
with the grazing livestock here at Wicken and it's that sense of
when you have that time to spend with these individuals you get
to know their personalities and they are all unique. It's a
lovely it's a lovely way to spend time isn't it watching
animal behaviour.
DAFILA SCOTT: It's so lovely I mean I get fond of the wild
ducks that come to the bottom of my garden and I'll feed them a
little bit but i couldn't tell if there was a different one
coming. Whereas, you know, with the Bewick's, you can look at
them and you can so quickly recognise individuals. It
really, it's very special.
AJAY TEGALA: After talking to Dafila, I'm even more determined
to see them again. At Wicken Fen, I see or hear whooper swans
most days throughout the winter, but never Bewick's. And I don't
think I'll get quite so lucky with my kitchen window, so I
head to WWT Welney. Where the Ouse Washes provide a winter
retreat for thousands of swans.
LIZZIE BRUCE: I think early morning in the winter is really
special. Particularly when you get that nice misty Fenland
morning and the skies are clear and you have the sun rising and
the swans are waking up in the morning so they start getting
really talkative to one another, flapping their wings. And you
kind of sense their excitement that the day is starting and
then they'll lift off the washes and then fly over your heads.
In like big flocks of like bees calling and then go out to the
fields and feed during the day and if you're lucky you'll pick
out the Bewick's swans.
AJAY TEGALA: This is Lizzie Bruce the site manager of
Welney. We meet in the heated bird hide with panoramic windows
that give views across the wetland. It's the perfect place
for spotting winter visitors.
Of course the stars this time of year are the swans and your work
involves a lot of monitoring of the swans.
LIZZIE BRUCE: Yes, so Welney and the Ouse Washes are
internationally important for its wintering Bewick's swans and
whooper swans. So here at WWT we've been monitoring the
populations along with our partners for decades.
So the washes are really important for a safe roosting
place for the swans at night. And then in the morning they'll
go off to feed. So we will get up at cracker sparrows and count
all the swans coming off the washes and going out into the
field. And then during the day, we then go driving around the
fens across the farmland and in small teams we then count the
birds again.
So we'll count the total flock size, so how many whooper swans
and how many Bewick's swans are in each flock. So we can then
understand what is the population doing, but also
identify where there are important feeding and roosting
locations that we can then protect to ensure they can
winter here undisturbed.
AJAY TEGALA: I always used to get teased that all I did was
counting birds, like how hard can that be? But actually it can
be quite challenging.
LIZZIE BRUCE: Yeah, on this scale it can be really
challenging and last week we were doing the swan count out in
the arable fields and it was one of those really windy days where
it's really gusty.
So we're setting up a tripod to scan through the flocks that can
be several hundred metres away and the scope is rocking from
side to side. So you're seeing almost like double through the
scope and then you've got the wind blowing and your eyes are
watering. It can be yeah on those days quite a challenge but
yeah it's still good.
AJAY TEGALA: The swans we're talking about here aren't the
sort you'll see in your local park. The whoopers and the
Bewick's are distinct species and can be distinguished from
each other by their size and behaviour. At first glance, they
may look very similar, but Lizzie has a good way to tell
them apart. For the whooper swans, the yellow extends
further along their bill.
LIZZIE BRUCE: It's almost like a wedge of cheese. That's kind of
the easiest way we describe it. And then the Bewick's swans,
their bill is predominantly black with a very small sort of
spot of yellow and it's more like a knob of butter.
AJAY TEGALA: Brilliant. I love that analogy.
Both whooper and Bewick's swans spend their winter here with us.
But their journeys are very different.
LIZZIE BRUCE: The whooper Swans here in Britain have all come
from Iceland, so we get the entire Icelandic population
wintering in Britain and Ireland. And the Bewick's swan,
they've come from Russia, so the Tundra up in Russia, and they
have a 3,500-kilometre migration.
AJAY TEGALA: And, of course, they come here for a couple of
reasons, the climate, the availability of food, like the
sugar beet tops, and this important wetland that you
manage, because I live nearby. I just love it when they arrive in
the autumn and you think they've come all the way from Iceland
and they're coming here to my home patch. It's really
exciting.
LIZZIE BRUCE: It's so magical. I know when we first hear the
whooper swans, we all get really excited. It's really
heartwarming as well to see some of those birds come back and
know that they've had a successful migration back home
to breed. And then they come back and even better if they've
got cygnets with them. Yeah, it just makes you all feel warm and
fuzzy inside. It's lovely.
AJAY TEGALA: So you get quite an insight into their lives with
the monitoring work as well. And I know that you've just been
number crunching over the last few days from the latest count.
Can you tell us a bit more about that?
LIZZIE BRUCE: Yes, so it's a team effort. So while WWT lead
on it locally here, we work with RSPB and National Trust and all
our wetlands. So our numbers are, for whooper swans last
week, we counted about 8,600 birds roosting on the Ouse
Washes at night. And they were joined by about 50 Bewick's
swans.
And then when we went out, around the fields around the
Ouse Washes and the eemwashes we then counted a total of 13,000
whooper swans and they had about a thousand juveniles in those
flocks. And then Bewick's swans we found 68 Bewick's swans and
14 juveniles. So while whooper swans are going up we are sadly
seeing the Bewick's swan population decline. So these
counts we did last week are the lowest Bewick counts we've had
on records and a research was just published in the last week
that suggested that the Bewick's swan population has actually,
European population, has actually declined by 56% since
1995, which partly reflects why we're seeing such low numbers
here.
But what we're also seeing Bewick's swans do is something
called short stopping. So this is when the Bewick's swans are
not migrating as far as they used to. So historically, they
would have moved as the cold weather sort of pushed them
westwards but now we've got warmer winters the Bewick's
swans are favouring Germany so they are seeing more and less
here.
AJAY TEGALA: Behind us in the hide, a huge map with yellow
lines draws out a migration that spans the entire length of
Europe from the Russian Tundra.
LIZZIE BRUCE: So you can see on here the Bewick's swans and then
they'll head west mainly by night following the coast and
they can cover about
2,000 miles before they get to us here at Welney and they can
stop off at places like Netherlands, Germany, Denmark,
Belgium. And it's not a quick migration you know it can take
about six weeks from their breeding grounds to reach their
final wintering grounds here at Welney or increasingly in
Germany.
It's really fascinating to see where they've come from but also
some of challenges that they face during their migration. So
up in Russia, they're particularly faced by climate
change and the warming of the Tundra, making it wetter and
less favourable for them.
As you go further west, there's sort of change in food
availability. They also do face illegal hunting along their
journey. So because they're the size of a goose, they can be
mistaken for a goose, so they can be illegally shot. And then
as they come more towards Europe and us, they then can encounter
power lines. So yeah, there's quite a lot of challenges.
Beyond it just being 2,000 miles.
AJAY TEGALA: Of course, you've been here a relatively short
period of time, but you've seen extremes in water levels and
weather and temperature, haven't you?
LIZZIE BRUCE: Yeah, so, you know, we all know that we're
kind of in this climate crisis. The climate is changing. And so,
yeah, I've been at Wellney for about two years now. It started
off with our wettest year, with prolonged winter flooding, well
into the sort of breeding season and then starting again really
early in September.
And, you know, it's important to say that Ouse Washes is flood
storage. So it is doing what it's meant to do. It is
protecting farmland and homes from flooding. However, what we
are seeing is that it's becoming more extreme, more prolonged,
which has a negative impact on the wildlife.
And then this year we've had now had our driest year and looking
at the long-range forecast it looks like we're going to go
into next year on some of our sites with really low water
levels which again has an impact on our wildlife. So yeah we are
working with farmers with landowners of how can we create
more wetlands and manage the water more sustainably have a
more coordinated joined up approach so that it benefits
everybody and everything.
AJAY TEGALA: Yeah, that's something we're involved in at
Wicken Fen as well. And the importance of kind of holding
back that water to see us through the summer. And so
creating reservoirs is something we're doing in partnership with
some of the farmers as well.
LIZZIE BRUCE: Around here, the farmers really welcome the
swans. Some of the farmers say that if they're nibbling away on
the winter wheat, it actually makes it better the following
year. It kind of adds a bit more rigorous growth to the wheat.
So as long as the swans aren't trampling them when it's really
wet, yeah, the farmers are quite happy for swans out on their
winter wheat.
Locally what's really great is that we work really closely with
National Grid and UK Power and trying to fit deflectors to the
power lines. And this has been really successful, so they've
kind of evolved over time but they're basically just a small
plastic disc with reflectors on both sides that will just clip
onto the cables and this immediately makes such a big
difference to the swans they can immediately see them.
And once they're on those power lines, the swans instantly kind
of, we stop seeing those collisions.
AJAY TEGALA: I think that just highlights that to look after
species that migrate, it is about teamwork. It is about
working together and, yeah, different industries getting
involved to make a real difference.
LIZZIE BRUCE: A lot of birds are losing their wetlands. If we can
create more wetlands, more safe areas for them to roost and
feed. And then, yes, some of the other challenges such as power
lines. And, yeah, we can reverse some of the negativity. And as
you can see with whooper swans, their population is now
thriving.
AJAY TEGALA: The threats to the washes feel far away as we sit
drenched in sunlight looking at the expanse of blue, trimmed
with green edges. There are hundreds of chestnut-headed
pochard, a dozen pintails, ducks with needle-like tails, a
tumbling flock of lapwings and of course a familiar sight.
LIZZIE BRUCE: So we also have a few swans out here so we've got
mute swans and whooper swans. They're just drifting up and
down. At this time of day a lot of the swans have all gone off
into the fields to feed. But then we do a commentated swan
feed in the afternoons during the winter, at about half three,
and this is when we start.
We give the swans and the ducks a small amount of grain. It's a
little treat for them, and you'll start to see more swans
coming in. It's really magical just seeing them drift around,
and they'll come in closer to the hide, and it's really
special.
AJAY TEGALA: With sunset and the swan feed a few hours off, I'm
determined to use this time to search for Bewick's swans. And I
know that they're out there, somewhere in the fields that
stretch out in front of us. But our chances aren't good, as
there are only a very small number dotted across the Fens.
So we're just about a mile away from Welney, we've headed south,
and there's a field with about 200 swans. And I've just scanned
through with my telescope and they are all whooper swans.
They've all got that wedge of cheese rather than the knob of
butter. But there's definitely some juveniles, you can pick out
the greyer ones.
I guess it must be winter wheat, there's just the kind of green
shoots coming through, you've got the really black peaty soil
and then the lush green shoots coming through and they're just
kind of, well most of them are sat, some of them are waddling
around, but in the winter sun the green looks so bright and
then also the whiteness of the swans glowing in the sun.
Yeah it is a really distinctive call. I mean they sound just
like geese, they're kind of honking a little bit. So yeah,
very different to mute swans which don't say a lot and they
have that kind of high-pitched call when you do hear them.
Here it's this kind of deep grunty kind of hooping call that
gives them the name. But yeah, it is very goose-like. It's
funny because they look so elegant and beautiful and yet
they just sound a little bit less like they look I suppose.
But I love that sound, I absolutely adore it.
So we've been driving around quite a few miles on bumpy roads
and we were sort of beginning to give up hope and we've just
stumbled upon another field with another couple of hundred swans
in. We're on the kind of a remote farm track, very
windswept, on the side of a minor road and I'm just going to
scan across and see if we can pick out, fingers crossed, some
Bewick's.
I really, really want to see them. I really want to see them.
This happens a few more times. We spot a flock of white in the
distance.
Pick our way down increasingly narrow roads, then get out the
scope.
But each time, all that's in front of me are wedges of cheese
and hooping.
We've just spent a couple of hours literally driving all over
the fens, looking for Bewick's swans. We didn't see any, but
there's this gorgeous sunset. Everything's turning orange and
we're heading back to Welney for hopefully the highlight of the
day.
We return to Welney just in time for the dusk swan feed. Despite
hundreds of criss-crossing pochard ducks, there is just a
single whooper swan.
It floats gracefully, bending its neck to scoop up its nightly
treat. But afterwards, we take a stroll to the final hide. A
great white V shoots over our head, softly hooping through the
fading light.
There's not really much colour, just kind of greyness, but
silver to the water, on which there's lots of silhouetted
ducks. I can hear lots of widgeon whistling. Every now and
then a few whooper swans are dropping in and we're expecting
over the next few minutes more and more to come in to roost
here on this water for the night.
Leaving Welney I was sad not to see any Bewick's swans but it's
hardly surprising with so many challenges facing them.
I was starting to give up hope of seeing any Bewick's swans
this year. But on a frozen morning, I take one last trip to
Welney.
I'm in the Lyle Hide on Welney, and it's a few weeks after I
spent a whole day looking for Bewick's swans. And since then,
there's been this cold snap. There's a lot of frozen water on
the washes here. There's a few little areas that aren't frozen,
and that's where the swans are gravitating to. And as if by
magic, there's a distant group of about ten.
And I've just through a telescope been watching one and
literally it's had its head tucked into its wing for ages,
tantalising, but it looked a bit smaller. And eventually it
showed its head and I could see that just like it was described
the bill is mostly black with like a little knob of butter and
there it is, a Bewick's swan at last. After so much searching
it's so exciting to finally see a Bewick's swan. Wahey, even
though it's quite a long way away through a scope not visible
with the naked eye at all, hardly.
It's just really exciting to finally, finally see one and
worth heading out in the cold to witness.
There it is, there it is. Yes. Yes.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Wild Tales. To find
out more about Welney and the swan counts, you can go to our
show notes and join us on Instagram @wildtalesnt.
See you next time.