Mute Swan
The one we have at El Dorado is huge, and even though males and females can be hard to distinguish, males are generally larger than females and have larger bill knobs, so I'm going to go ahead and call this one a male - or cob, as I've learned male swans are called. (Females are pens.)
He's not aggressive, like the geese can be. Of couse, he'll hiss at you if you get too close and start bugging him. But if you're cool, and he's hanging out in the grass in the park around the pond resting, for instance, you can get within a foot or two of him without invading his personal space.
And if you're nice about it, he'll take a snack from your hand.
Like I said, he's big, and it's when he's on land that you fully appreciate it. He's taller than my four-year-old, his legs are as thick as tree branches (tree branches that are approximately swan-leg thickness), and he seems to know his size buys him some clout. Most of the time he's got a live-and-let-live attitude toward the other waterfowl he shares the pond with. If an unfortunate duck or goose gets too rowdy too close to him though, he'll beat the holy hell out of it. I've seen him push and hold a duck underwater.
Lots of things at the duck pond can get to you emotionally. Dead birds, dead turtles, filthy water, deformed feet, injured wings. On the weekends, kids (and parents) chasing the birds, or hitting at them with sticks. These things bug me, or piss me off, but they don't make me sad. Watching the gulls raid duck nests for eggs and eat the eggs right there in front of everyone, interestingly, didn't get to me. It probably bugged the ducks, but for me it was a nature show kind of moment; who you feel sorry for depends on who the show is about.
The Mute Swan, alone among the birds, makes me sad precisely because he is alone among the birds. He's the only Mute Swan at the duck pond. I don't pretend to know if he is sad or lonely. He might be perfectly content. But when I see pair after pair of every other kind of animal, and eggs and chicks and nests and juveniles learning all the bad habits of the duck pond from their parents, it makes me a little sad that the swan is the only "only" there. Such an obvious symbol of romance (the boats in the tunnel of love aren't shaped like geese, after all), and a bird known to mate for life just ought to have a partner.
Mute Swan, March 14, 2010, at the duck pond, 4:30 p.m., photos taken on iPhone. Identified on the web.
He appears to be a very mature Mute Swan. You can tell from the size of the knob on his nose. It takes many years to grow to that size. He must have had a mate and lost her. There is still a chance he may find a new mate. Here are the Mute Swans from my neighborhood, Long Island, New York. I have known the older pair for almost 20 years now.
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