How many ways have our swans been injured?
Let me count the ways: a gun shot wound, an Amazon blow gun, an l8 wheeler, power lines, fish hooks and snapping turtles.
Caesar was here 34 years so he endured the most injuries. One late, New Year’s Eve afternoon, he flew west over the gravel pit (which is now the Preserve).The next morning I found him hunched over on the ice at the spillway and there was blood on the snow beneath him. He winced noticeably when he slid into the water to warm himself. I imagine the holiday shooter was trying out a new Christmas present.
The next incident happened on a sunny June Sunday. I noticed Caesar nervously swimming in front of our house and looking up at us. I thought he was hungry so I grabbed a bag of bread and went out to see what was troubling him. The most frightful sight greeted me. A six inch long, steel dart, from an Amazon blow gun was protruding from his head-just behind his eyes. The dart had an amber bead at its end. That previous week I was perplexed at seeing so many Mallards with these amber beads stuck on them. These ducks too had all been shot and probably all died as a result of this idiot kid and his toy.
I recovered from my shock and jumped into the lake, seizing Caesar and pulling out the dart. Then I flew into action and found the family who placed this lethal weapon in the hands of their darling. I turned over the dart, the blow gun and the family name to the Sheriff’s department and they took it from there.
An 18 wheeler in Loch Alpine?? No, the truck was on Jackson Rd. but the swan was from Loch Alpine. It being January, the confused swan mistook the blacktop road for a stream and collided with the truck. The swan wore a leg band and so its bad luck was reported to Lansing and then to us.
The power lines are always here and the birds must learn of their existence but sometimes it’s in a shocking way. The first Cleopatra was severely injured in l96l when she hit the wires south of Greenook Lake. The lines snagged her in the neck and all winter long she looked like a chipmunk with a beak full of nuts. Just last week one of the swans on Bridgeway was out for a late afternoon jaunt and he didn’t rise fast enough to clear the lines across Midway. He was knocked down onto the pathway and you couldn’t miss the black smudges on his back from the wire insulation.
The fish hooks are the bane of my existence. I’ve taken a few baths removing fish hooks from swan’s heads and breasts. One cygnet I recall had two hooks from the same line caught on his head and the other hook was caught on his breast. He couldn’t raise his head and looked so pathetic not being able to see where he was going. Consideration, while casting and reeling in line keeps some of this from happening.
And then we have the turtles or rather, the turtles have the swans. The most remarkable swan-turtle confrontation occurred in 1971. Our first great cob, Anthony, was lost during a winter night flight and left two cygnets behind-they were Caesar and Brutus. The people who lived in Wes Daining’s house had a dock which extended about 12 feet out in the lake. The folks were playing around the dock when they noticed Brutus, with his head in the water and his feet flailing in the air. He was within their reach so they pulled on his legs and the turtle let go of his bill. You always knew Brutus after that because his jaw was dislocated and extended about an inch beyond the upper. So far our present flock on Greenook haven’t fallen prey to any of these sources of injury and I hope they can fly through life accident free.
