The sale of Dawlish's black swan badges has raised nearly £1,500 towards the care of the town's much-loved waterfowl colony.

The town council's Civic Amenities Committee received an update on the black swans and other birds on the Brook at their meeting on Wednesday, January 20.

Councillors welcomed the news of the money raised by the badges, which were designed and produced by local man Richard Hayward.

He has designed the Dawlish Royal British Legion's Remembrance Sunday poppy badges for the last five years, and decided to make a special, limited-edition black swan badge to bring in some money for the waterfowl, after the deaths of 11 of the swans and cygnets in an avian flu outbreak in November.

There was huge demand for the badges and all 500 were sold for £3.00 each, raising the target amount and covering production costs.

The committee agreed to send a letter of thanks to Mr Hayward.

The town council's Events, Projects and Tourism Officer, Angie Weatherhead, told the meeting that after the avian flu outbreak, there was a 'flood' of donations to the waterfowl.

She said the waterfowl wardens are considering the issue of increasing the black swan population through breeding, but this cannot happen yet because of the precautions still in place against avian flu.

There are currently six black swans on the Brook – a brother and sister, father and daughter, and two other males.

There have been no further cases of avian flu, and the other birds in the aviary and the geese are all well.

Millions watch Dawlish black swan video

Meanwhile, a video of Dawlish's black swans and cygnets, filmed in 2019, has reached 10 million views on YouTube, and seven million on Facebook.

The film was made by Neil Salter of Dawlish Beach Cams and the Black Swan Cam, and shows two adult swans leading five cygnets into the water – with one of the cygnets clearly not keen to go in, remaining on the bank as the others swim around.

Neil said: "On the 17th of October 2019, I was out doing my Dawlish rounds, taking photos for social media, when I bumped into Don, the waterfowl warden. He was ushering the black swans and their one-week-old cygnets into the Brook as the seagulls on the lawn behind us were very hungry and far too close for comfort.

"I put my phone into the gimbal and started to film them on their way to the Brook. I didn't realise that I was capturing anything special, but over time it has proved to be our most popular video ever, now it's reached 10 million views on YouTube and seven million on Facebook.

"The last cygnet into the brook would eventually become known as 'The Lone Ranger', possibly the world's most famous cygnet, especially after this video. Sadly, the Lone Ranger passed away in May 2020 after going missing for a few days.

"The video was uploaded to YouTube on the 6th December 2019 and watched by about 100 people a day and then on 11th June 2020, 200,000 people were watching it every day! At the time of publishing this blog post, 250,000 people per week are still watching the video."

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