As It Happens6:34Why Reggie the black swan has been evicted from William Shakespeare’s hometown
By day, Reggie the black swan seemed innocent enough.
Residents and tourists, alike, were taken by the dark-feathered, red-nosed waterfowl who suddenly appeared in the picturesque British town of Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, about nine months ago.
People would stop to watch him on their morning strolls, swimming majestically and peacefully alongside the town’s native flock of mute swans.
“In the evening time, it had a different side to it,” Cyril Bennis, the town’s volunteer swan warden, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.
“Listen, it was a nightmare. An absolute ruddy nightmare.”
Trying to drown the locals
While locals bestowed their newest feathered friend with the nickname Reggie, Bennis calls him something else: Mr. Terminator.
That’s because, Bennis says, he was terrorizing the native mute swan population.
While Reggie seemed to get along fine with the other swans at first, once he got comfortable in new digs, “that’s when he was starting to get a bit naughty.”
Bennis says he would intimidate the males, break up long-established couples and try to mate with the females. He’d even resort to violence against his fellow swans.
“Violence, yes. Trying to drown them,” Bennis said. “Quite horrendous, really. And it’s natural, you know. These animals are wild animals and they’re not ornaments.”
Stratford-upon-Avon is home to a flock of about 60 mute swans. You can recognize them by their white plumage, orange and black beaks and long, S-shaped necks.
Not only are mute swans a protected species in the U.K., they’re Crown property. Every unmarked, and therefore unowned mute swan in open waters belongs to the King.
Black swans, meanwhile, are native to Australia. According to BBC Wildlife Magazine, they were first brought to Europe at the turn of the 18th century and mainly reside in private ponds and parks.
But every now and then, they escape private collections and fly off to intermingle with Britain’s wild swan populations.
“He was trying to mate with the mute swans, and that is not good,” Bennis said. “That’s not good for the ecology, and that would not go down well with His Majesty.”
Bagging the swan
After consulting with the Crown’s representative in Stratford-on-Avon, Bennis decided it was time to wrangle Reggie out of the pond and send him on his way.
Reggie, however, had other ideas.
“This particular fellow was not impressed,” Bennis said. “I managed to get it out of the water, and it fought like tooth and nail.”
Bennis eventually managed to calm the bird down and get it into a bag.
“l am a little bit sore today from my little episode,” he said.
The black swan is “having a wonderful, wonderful restful time,” Bennis said, recovering from his trauma in a local enclosure and being fed as many treats as he can eat.
“He’s eating us out of house and home.”
The town has secured a spot for Reggie at the Dawlish Waterfowl Centre in Devon, England, home to one of the largest black swan populations in the country.
Bennis, however, must remain behind and face the public’s wrath. Despite all his troubles, Bennis says, Reggie was extremely popular.
The forlorn swan warden-turned-swan wrangler says he can’t run an errand in town without someone stopping him and demanding to know why he banished their beloved Reggie. Local children, he says, are especially distraught.
“The question is, ‘Why? Why? Why, sir? Why are you doing this?'” he said. “I’ll be well-known [as] the man that took away the black swan.”
Asked whether Mr. Terminator would “be back,” like his movie namesake, Bennis immediately responded: “Heavens above, no, he will not.”
“Listen, I’ve learned my lesson with black swans,” he said. “I’ve learned my lesson with the fact that once they come, they’re going.”
