Swans are fascinating and also very elegant water birds, which build their nests in spring among the reeds, near water sources. The female lays 5 to 8 eggs and then broods them for about 35 days. Meanwhile, the male guards the nest. The pair of swans that Rob Adamson had been taking care of for years, however, had never had much luck during the brooding period, as the eggs were always lost or destroyed. You shouldn't interfere with Nature, true, but Rob would not have gone to bed peacefully just thinking that, on that Friday evening in May, the swans might lose their eggs again.

It's true, one shouldn't interfere with Nature, but Rob Adamson could no longer bear to see a pair of swans who continually lost their nest with their eggs every time the waters of St Ives, Cornwall ( UK), rose up. The forty-two-year-old therefore decided to intervene to safeguard the nest belonging to that pair of swans, which he had been wathing oven for 10 years at the Jones Boatyard, where he himself lives on a floating boat. In all those years, the swan eggs had always been destroyed due to rising waters or because of foxes, but this time Rob would not allow it. It's no coincidence that, in the area, he is also known by the nickname of "swan man".

That evening, Rob realized just in time that the waters surrounding St Ives were rising and that the poor swans weren't going to make it. So, in a hurry, in the dark of the evening, the man built a kind of makeshift raft, in order to move the nest with the eggs to a safer area. During the operation, he claims that the couple's male did nothing to stop him and neither of them became aggressive: they probably knew that the man was just trying to help them and that they couldn't hope for anything better! The raft had a rope attached to it, so it could be moved across the water if needed.

Mr Adamson said: "You're not supposed to interfere, but it had got to the point where they were all going to die. "I couldn't go to bed knowing that. I knew I would regret it if I didn't do anything to save them." Mr Adamson, known locally as "the swan man", previously raised an abandoned cygnet called Sid and tried to release him into the wild, but he kept coming back. "After Sid, I've got a special place in my heart for swans and I have been watching this pair fail for the last 10 years," he said. "This is why I am here, living on the water. I'm in dreamland with all the wildlife. I wouldn't swap my boat for a £10m house."

Rob did a really nice job, giving these swans a chance to continue hatching their own eggs. A man who has dedicated his life to nature and who would not change his lifestyle for the world.