Swans

There is a large field in the middle of my town which is a protected winter-time feeding ground for a large group of trumpeter swans. They are on the endangered species list, but you'd never know it around here. They are quite magnificent birds, if a little hard to see against the snow. They are also coyly camera-shy. They waddled just far away enough from me that I'd have to wade through a slushy ditch to get closer to them. "Paparazzi", I thought I heard one honk.



My favourite memory of seeing these birds was a night long ago in my teenage years. I was out walking around two in the morning to meet my friend Tai (sorry Mom, if you're reading this)and I was regretting venturing out of my warm bed. It was a bitterly cold winter night.

Then, I heard the swans. There was two of them, flying low, very low, their white wings glistening in the moonlight. They flew not twenty feet in front of my startled eyes, ethereal and yet so close I felt like I could reach out and touch them. And then they were gone. It's one of those clear moments in time that will always stay with me.



Joining the feeding swans today, there were flocks of crows, my favourite birds, cleaning up the left-over pumpkins left in the fields. They were surprisingly skittish too, for crows, and danced merrily away from my camera.




But I did meet a duck which practically begged me to take its picture. It was a rather funny-looking duck and waddled right up to me from its place on the river-bank. Anybody know what kind of duck this is?