Swan Watch

 

By Budd Schulberg

Budd and his wife Geraldine bought a house on Long Island that was a riverfront property. Wasn't long before they discovered that a pair of swans lived nearby on the river. As is generally true, these swans were aggressive. Locals warned them that swans could be dangerous and advised them to steer clear of the pair. 

But Budd decided to embark on a campaign of gaining the swans' trust. He began by feeding the two birds bread. His campaign worked, although it did take some time. But eventually he got the birds to take bread from his hand. The male was the bravest of the two and let Budd get the closest to him. But the female remained a bit wary. 

Eventually the two swans built a nest and raised a brood of baby swans, seven in all. The cygnets all fledged and were ultimately driven away by their parents in due time. The mated pair stayed on the river year round and the next spring again hatched a brood of baby swans. But this time things did not go well and all the cygnets were victims of predation by a new arrival to the river, the black backed gull.

The book ends with the author wondering about the ability of these two swans to successfully raise their offspring to adulthood with this aggressive new predator on the scene, the black backed gull.

The swans the author was enamored of were mute swans, a non-native species originally from Europe which now considered invasive. This is what Cornell University has to say about mute swans in New York:

Some mute swans are very aggressive and territorial and will chase off and sometimes kill other waterfowl species that enter their territory. With the swan’s large breeding territories in wetlands, they displace many native birds for breeding habitat. Swans tend to be most aggressive during the nesting and brood-rearing stages.

Schulberg's true story about this pair of mute swans dates from the 1970s and I suppose that was before the birds were considered an invasive species. So maybe the arrival of the predatory black backed gulls was not really a bad thing, although he clearly felt it was.

Whatever their ultimate fate in the United States, I did enjoy this short story about Budd Schulberg and the mute swans.