A DEAD swan that had been causing a stir in Stockbridge has been removed from the riverbank at last.

Residents had been waiting for days for it to be removed after the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs put up a sign explaining that its staff could not take it away because of the risk of attack should its mate be among other swans on that stretch of the Test.

However, when Ken and Judy Merriman, of the Swan Rescue Sanctuary at Wimborne, arrived on Wednesday, summoned by a villager, to collect the bird, there was no intervention by other members of the mute swan population.

Mr Merriman said the dead bird had been "one of last year's babies" and that it was about 11 months old.

He thought that scratches on its back and torn neck feathers suggested that it had come off second best in a territorial dispute - but he could not rule out the possibility that it flew into overhead cables.

Mrs Merriman said: "Bird flu is getting whipped up out of all proportion. "Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't pick up a dead bird but, because of the publicity this one had been receiving, we thought it was better just to take it away."

When the bird actually died remains a mystery. One resident said it had been on the riverbank since Thursday, April 13. Another said it had been there since Monday, when the Defra sign had been put up.

A businessman from the village said: "There has been so much hype about bird flu when there is really nothing to hype up. It's sensational scaremongering."

A spokesman for Defra said it did not comment on individual cases but added that it would be collecting the bird from the swan sanctuary.

"It was reported to us and we will collect it - as we do many dead birds from around the country. This is just another one," he added.