IT WAS two days of high drama involving a bit of swan hugging and effective teamwork at a beauty spot near Weymouth.

The biennial swan round-up in the Fleet Lagoon where the inhabitants of the Abbotsbury Swannery are rounded up by volunteers for a health check went like a dream, say organisers.

Bringing several hundred of the birds together on land is no easy task and requires an operation requiring military precision.

It happens every two years and is understood to be the world’s largest round-up of swans.

Canoeists first paddle seven miles up and down the Fleet in order to secure the swans inside booms and buoys.

Families who camp nearby stay at the site overnight in tents so they can keep an eye on them and the second day is reserved for the round-up itself. Participants wade into the water to form a ‘human net’ that steadily drives the swans on land.

All birds are then checked over by vets and scientists, weighed and measured, vaccinated against disease, ringed if they aren’t already and released as soon as possible.

The birds have to be carried a small distance back to the water’s edge – a process which appears to look like the carrier is hugging the swan from behind.

To maximise people’s chances of catching as many swans as possible, and to make carrying large wet birds simpler, the round-up is held when they are moulting and cannot fly.

Around 250 people volunteered over the weekend and almost 800 mute swans were brought ashore in the exercise which was sponsored by HM Swan Warden Professor Chris Perrins of Oxford University.

Abbotsbury Swanherd Dave Wheeler said: “It is a huge amount of work and there is a certain amount of worry.

“We only get one crack at this, once every two years, so we have to get it right.

“One year, the wrong bloke was in the wrong place and we lost about 300 swans. All of a sudden the swans panicked and broke through the canoes. People were jumping in the water trying to stop them, but we lost the lot.

“This year it went superbly well, as smooth as silk. There was a wonderful spirit, a great mix of people, everyone worked together, it was fantastic.”

The first round-up was held in 1980, partly to assist Prof Perrins with long-term studies into the Abbotsbury swans.

Prof Perrins said: “If you don’t ring the birds, you can’t identify them, and if you can’t identify them, then it is difficult to study them.”