‘You know those ducks in that lagoon by Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?’
I blew the dust off my old copy of The Catcher in the Rye to find that quote. Rather eerily it fell open at exactly the right page. But never mind those ducks in Central Park, Holden Caulfield. What I want to know is where do the swans go when they leave Pond Cottage? Long before it is in any danger of freezing over.
Who knows what is in a swan’s head. We can’t find a bird book that comes close to explaining the behaviour of swans that come to breed at Pond Cottage.But we have learned not to believe that stuff about mating for life.
We first began to get a glimpse of the murky world of swan relationships when that bad boy AJA did a bunk having fathered three cygnets (well, six actually but only three survived).
We knew he was AJA because we could see the letters on a ring on his leg. What we didn’t know was that he had left his first mate (his mother no less) after fathering a brood on the Town Loch in Dunfermline in 1995. That is we didn’t know it until (thanks to Google) we found two expert and dedicated swan handlers, Allan and Lyndsey Brown, who were able to tell us AJA’s story by decoding the letters on his ring.
Then they came and performed a little magic on the banks of the pond, coaxing AJA’s abandoned mate and her three cygnets out of the water with some white sliced bread. They were gentle and deft and knew just what they were doing. It was an amazing experience which we had given up hope of repeating until this year.
I contacted Allan and Lyndsey again last month to ask if they might be able to come and ring this year’s family of nine swans. Sadly, Lyndsey told me, they have decided to call it a day after years of catching and ringing hundreds of swans in the Fife area. Still, thanks to Allan and Lyndsey, we know what it feels like to stroke a swan’s chest (they seem to find it soothing when they are being trussed, weighed and measured) and we have the pictures to prove it.
And though AJA never showed up again we know quite a lot about his movements until that summer of 2004 – he came and went between Lochgelly, Loch Leven and Town Loch. Part of me wishes we didn’t know what happened to his son, less charismatically ringed as ILS in September 2004.
The mother swan flew off as soon as her new feathers grew leaving her three offspring to winter on the pond. They pottered about quite happily coming up to the bank to be fed every time we appeared. One misty February morning we arrived to find the pond empty and a few days later I got an email with the subject line: mute swan ILS. It was a message from Allan.
We have received a report that cygnet ILS was found dead below power lines at Milnathort (NO131047) on 6th February 2005. Was this its first flight? A not untypical cause of death for cygnets but a great pity all the same – especially after the food you have given it!
Holden Caulfield never does find out about the ducks. Maybe sometimes it’s a happier ending not to know.
Flashback to Spring 2004.
[I wrote this three winters ago but decided to republish partly because it is one of the stories that attracts most visitors to my blog – or maybe it is the handsome swan’s head – and partly because a pair of swans appeared on the pond yesterday morning. Who knows how long they will stay.]
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