Swan rescued from motorway and returned to nature reserve by police

Nottinghamshire Police were left baffled after receiving a call that there was "a possibly injured swan near the entrance of the M1 on the A610."

The officers initially tried to chase the swan in order to get it to fly away, but then concluded that a rescue operation was required.

"Thankfully for one of our PCSOs it wasn’t his first rodeo in rescuing a swan," they said.

"[Then] it was the swan's turn for a ride in a police car - but thankfully it was heading to much sunnier climes than a custody suite."

The police then gave the swan a trip in the footwell of the back of their car, before dropping it off at a nature reserve.

"Our officers weren’t swanning about last week when a swan needed rescuing from the M1," the force shared in a statement on X.

"It was the swan's turn for a ride in a police car," they continued, "but thankfully it was heading to much sunnier climes than a custody suite."

"The swan was returned to the Attenborough Nature Reserve," they confirmed.

Attenborough Nature Reserve was opened by Sir David Attenborough in 1996, and is home to over 250 different species of bird.