Bird on the tracks

Out for a stroll on Sunday morning, I found myself in the near vicinity of an aviation emergency. No, it didn’t involve Ryanair planes touching. In this case it was only a swan, crash-landing a few feet from me. But what it lacked in danger, it made up for in drama.

I was crossing Heuston Bridge at the time. So was the swan – completing its approach towards the eastern runway of the Liffey, beside the train station. Then, near disaster. The swan clipped the wires over the Luas track. About a second later he was lying beside me, in a heap, some of his feathers rejoining him belatedly from the sky.

We were both stunned by this setback, but the swan recovered first. He regained his feet – there didn’t seem to be anything broken. Then he walked up and down the bridge a few times, reviewing his situation quietly (he was a Mute swan), while I did likewise.

Should I help him, I wondered, or should I stay well out of his way? There was only a four-foot railing – the bridge’s early 19th-century ironwork, with its elegant floral motif — separating him from completion of his journey. Fully upright, he was taller himself.

But swans are the Airbus A380s of the bird world. Vertical take-off is not among their talents, I guessed. And sure enough, as I was thinking this, the swan hit on a desperate-looking plan.

Instead of flying over the rail, he attempted to squeeze himself through a hole in the elegant floral motif, even though it was about half as wide as him. Then, stuck, he added to the pathetic spectacle by flapping his wings, like that might make him thinner.

So I was about to intervene, nervously, when to my relief, another man – who knew was he was doing – beat me to it. “Will we grab him?” he said. “I think we better,” I replied, using the royal “we”, even as I stood back and let him at it.

First, he had to extract the swan from the floral motif, which was a bit like pulling a calf. Then, keeping the birds’ wings well wrapped, he hoisted him over the railing. And then, after giving him a moment to adjust his flight instruments, he let the swan go.

A smooth landing later, the rescuee swam off to join its mate, whereupon the pair did that beautiful thing swans do – touching beaks in a love-heart shape. Is was as if the other bird were saying: “You poor dear – I saw the whole thing” (not that she was saying anything, of course – she was Mute too.)

It’s the first time I’ve seen a swan crash, although I’m told it happens a lot. They have a habit of mistaking roads — sometimes even motorways - for rivers. And never mind tramlines, they often hit electric wires too, with fatal results.

The English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies found himself in some bother a few years ago when he cooked a protected Whooper swan that had crash-landed, electrocuted, near his home in Orkney. The musician was in no way responsible. On the contrary, he is a known environmentalist.

But as the people of Orkney well realise, there’s no point wasting good food. So while entertaining a visit from a policeman, Maxwell Davies appalled his guest by offering some of the “swan terrine” he had made. The policeman declined, but did take the rest of the bird away (as evidence rather than lunch).

Anyway, getting back to Dublin, the feathered emergency at Heuston was not the only Liffey Descent of the weekend, nor even the most dramatic. No indeed. The annual, massed canoe race of that name was also taking place.

I’m sad to say I didn’t witness that. In fact, the last time I enjoyed the mayhem at Straffan Weir – the best viewing point – was back in the 1990s, since when all my Saturday mornings at this time of year have been hijacked.

Even so, I know that among the 1,000 Liffey descenders this year was one Niall Power. Who, not content with the usual hazards involved, decided to kayak the 18-mile distance backwards. This began, inevitably, as a bet in the pub – never a good starting point for adventures in extreme sport.

But happily, like the swan, he reached Islandbridge in one piece. In the process, he raised several thousand euro for the Laura Lynn Foundation. If you feel like putting your oar in, even now, you can still add to his total at www.mycharity.ie/event/niall_powers_descent_event/

@FrankmcnallyIT