Saving Wendy

With Stan away, never to return, Wendy went about her parental duty to raise the three cygnets in their home territory.  To the north, Sully and Susie, with their pair of cygnets, drifted south, where they would normally halt in the presence of Stan guarding his territory.  Not any more.  They continued south and encountered the widow Wendy and her three.  This was not going to have a happy ending. 

Wendy could not stand and protect her cygnets, so it became a question of who was going to be the first to succumb to Sully's attacks.   The poor swans had a choice to be culled by Sully or captured by me; they wanted neither.  The chase went on for five days until I had captured, by hand, all four.

Using  the holding pens at Camelot Lakes in Sarasota, the cgynets were visited by the mobile avian vet, who microchipped and gender tested them.  He discovered a severe wing problem on one, which later required surgery.  This repair did not hold, so the cygnet's wing was partially amputated.

In mid-September, Wendy was returned with her female cygnet, Bebe, to join six other females on the Islandside course.  Six weeks after that, the pair of male cygnets, Lefty and Bubba, were placed in an open area on the Harbourside Golf Course.  Sully and Susie now command, as the sole breeding pair, a mile of waterway from Bay Isles Parkway south.

Curious of the names?  In the South Park comedy series, Bebe was Wendy's best friend, and I hope that continues.  Lefty and Bubba are a salute to the golfers who sometimes have to hold their drives until the swans cross the fairway; Lefty also refers to the one good wing.