Goose chase! Amazing footage of animal lover ushering 40 geese to safety from a Birmingham street

This is the heartwarming moment an animal lover spent more than two hours ushering 40 geese over a mile to safety after spotting them causing chaos along a busy city street.

Simon Finnegan, 49, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the huge flock of Canadian Geese waddling in and out of busy traffic in Erdington on Sunday (July 3).

He leapt into action as the lost birds caused havoc along a dual carriageway and began carefully guiding them towards the nearest canal more than a mile away.

Simon managed to act as Mother Goose as he helped the massive gaggle along two main roads and down a slope next to a petrol station back to the safety of water.

Mobile phone footage shows the frightened birds in a flap stranded on the central reservation of the dual carriageway while impatient motorists beeped their horns.

Simon, a data centre specialist, then captured the moment he was able to save the geese from being run over as he walked them back to the canal where they swam off.

Simon, of Bromford, Birmingham, said: "I had just finished work and got a lift to where my friend lives as we were going to watch the Grand Prix together. On the walk to his house I saw a few geese emerge over the road and then they just kept coming and coming, there were at least 40 of them.

"I could see they were in a bit of distress and obviously lost and disorientated. I do consider myself an animal lover and I knew I couldn’t just leave them like that. They were stepping into the road and sitting down while cars sounded their horns which didn’t really help matters, they must have been petrified. They were running around in the middle of the road, on the central grass verge and going back and forth and I just thought ‘what do I do here?’

"So I walked behind them and to the side of them when they looked like they were straying into the road- but not too close. A couple of them sat down by a wall, it was hard work. They kept pressing themselves up against the walls when a bus went past.

"I would just flap my hand if they got too close to the road and they would go the other direction and luckily when the first geese went one way, the rest of them followed.

"It was very tricky trying to shepherd them all in the right direction. I knew there was a canal nearby but a walk that would usually take 15 minutes took more than two hours. Eventually, I managed to get to a slope beside a garage near to some playing fields and there was a gap down to the water.

"Once in there, they seemed a lot happier and swam off unharmed. I’m glad they were safe. I had to go back for a couple of stragglers and a kind woman helped me with those. Amazingly, despite all that traffic, they were all OK. Most people just impatiently beeped their horns or filmed on their phones so I had to do it pretty must single-handedly.

"One lady said she phoned the RSPCA who told her to contact police but apparently they wanted nothing to do with it so it was a relief to get them all to safety. And because the Grand Prix was delayed I still managed to watch it with my mate so everything worked out in the end."

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