Crinkly Swan Love

Crinkly was shunned by girls

Freak Swan Crinkly Finds Love at Last

Updated:15:12, Friday December 14, 2007

A male swan who was shunned by females due to his oddly deformed neck may finally have found a girlfriend after seven years of waiting.

Crinkly the ugly swan has become a well-known face at a Gloucester bird sanctuary, having flown in from frozen Russia every year since 2001 to spend Christmas there.

But conservation workers have watched with dismay as Crinkly failed miserably to attract the opposite sex.

"We were worried about Crinkly because he is such a strange-looking bird," said Jools Mackin, spokesperson for Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, which is the swan's Christmas home.

"Every time he returns it is against the odds."

Until now, none of the females at the trust was prepared to mate with him - but conservation workers say they can see the signs of a budding romance.

"We are delighted because we think Crinkly has finally found a girlfriend," said Ms Mackin.

"He appears to be loosely associating with another Slimbridge Bewick's swan called Taciturn.

"It is too early to say whether or not they are mates, but we'll be monitoring them over the next few days to see. At the moment they are associating on Swan Lake.

"They are flying in and out together and we do hope they will become mates."

Experts at Slimbridge were amazed when Crinkly first arrived as a cygnet with parents Lucius and Coletta, with a strangely deformed neck probably caused by a birth defect.

Despite his disability, Crinkly has managed to survive seven migrations from breeding grounds on the Russian Arctic tundra - which means that he has flown over 21,000km.

Swans fly back to Britain at this time of year because conditions in the tundra make feeding impossible.