Swan struck by an arrow spotted at Windsor marina

A swan spotted at an east end marina appears to have been struck by an arrow.

Ray Piche took a photo of the injured bird that he said was floating on the water about eight metres from the shoreline.

"I spotted this swan and I could see blue and I didn't know what the heck it was," said Piche. "But I have a pretty long [camera] lens so I looked, and it was an arrow."

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Piche said he's a bit of an amateur photographer and went down to the marina Thursday to take photos of the ducks and geese on the water, when he came across the swan. 

"He was just floating around. I don't even know if it's hurting. Or it could be dying a slow death for all I know," said Piche. "You could see that it could move around by moving it's webbed feet ... but I never saw it's wings move or even it's head for that matter."

When he got home, Piche called Erie Wildlife Rescue to see if the organization could help the bird. But they said they have no way of retrieving the swan from the water. 

"The ice is dangerous and we have no boats so there's no way we would have been able to go out and get him," said Bonnie Dupuis, chairperson for Erie Wildlife Rescue. "It's going to be a hard catch whichever way you do it."

Piche said he went back to the marina on Friday to see if the swan was still there, but didn't see the bird.

"The hard thing for me was I couldn't find anybody to help the bird," he said. "It was obviously dying a slow death."