The swan is a beautiful decoration on my Christmas tree.

The Swan

One day in late summer I saw what looked like a pile of rags crumpled beside a small pond. The Manhan River is a small river, almost a stream in places, and it meanders through the neighborhoods of Easthampton, Massachusetts until it meets up with the larger Mill River and then on to the Oxbow and the Connecticut River.

Something about the pile of rags was odd. I squinted at it in the morning sunshine for a few minutes and swore I saw it move. It could have been a pile of newspapers ruffled by the breeze but I was curious and decided to investigate.

I made my way through the field to the pond until I was face to face with a young swan lying in the grass. She raised her head and her eyes were dull. She looked almost dead. She made no move to get away from me and I pulled a chewy granola bar out of my pocket and offered her a few crumbs. She opened her mouth and I fed her, alternating the grain with dribbles of water. She finished the whole thing and looked at me with such emotion in her eyes, I was shocked. The way she looked at me, there was no doubt she felt gratitude, a human emotion.

I lifted her up to put her in the water and saw that one leg was mis-formed. She could barely walk on it. She definitely couldn’t run and that’s why she was here instead of in the Chesapeake with her family. If she couldn’t use the leg, she couldn’t run along the water the way swans do, gathering momentum for take-off. When her family took off for their winter home, about 400 miles away, she was left behind.

As soon as I put her back in the pond with some sustenance in her, she was able to paddle around fairly well. Her deformity didn’t matter as long as she was paddling around, but once the others ran along the water until they had enough momentum to take flight — she was doomed to stay behind.

I fell in love with the poor swan. I asked at the local feed store and they suggested feeding her Turkey Finisher. It was the feed farmers give their turkeys to fatten them up for slaughter but it was organic and full of nutrients all types of fowl needed. I bought a 50lb. bag and began feeding her twice a day.

She thrived and her mood lifted. She was no longer a pile of dirty rags but a fat young swan paddling around the Manhan river with Canada Geese and Mallards for company.

She was able to waddle awkwardly with her bad leg and often made the short trip from the river to the pond nearby. One day, I picked her up and carried her back to the river. She spread her wings as I carried her as if she were flying and I threw her into the air as high as I could at the water’s edge. With wings outstretched she flew a short distance then glided gracefully down to the water and made a perfect landing. She waggled her tail and looked happy to me. For a few short seconds she was a normal swan.

I walked over to the place by the bridge where the water was deepest twice a day with my dog, Flash. The swan saw us coming down the hill and paddled to the water’s edge to wait for us. The weather was getting colder and sometimes there was ice along the shore. My swan was strong enough to limp from the small pond to the river and back again, but she seemed to prefer the river.

Flash and I loved the swan but the road to hell was paved with good intentions and things started getting out of hand.

Soon the river was full of ducks and geese that shouldn’t have been there. They all recognized Flash with her bright white coat as we came down the hill to feed our swan. They crowded the water’s edge and followed me up and down the shore squawking and quacking for food and the swan couldn’t get near me.

By the end of the week the population of ducks and geese had tripled. Too many for that small river. The water was running but they were polluting the shallower parts and making a mess of the riverbank. As long as I arrived every day with food, they had no intention of going anywhere.

I was going through bags and bags of Turkey Finisher. The ducks and geese were not afraid of me or my dog. They came right out of the water and met me on the path demanding food. They came right up to us, honking and quacking urgently. Right in my face! Inches away!

I had created an imbalance and once you start fooling with nature you’re fucked. The greedy ducks and geese eventually chased my swan out of the river. She spent most of her time in the small pond. The weather started to get really cold. It snowed. The water began to freeze more and more. Ducks and geese need open water. A few places along the river ran quickly enough that the water didn’t freeze and a small population of ducks stayed all winter but the pond was still and one day I came to find my swan stuck in the ice in the center of the pond. The still water had frozen little by little until she was forced into a small space in the center. She was trapped.

I ran home and got the sharpest and longest thing I could find — a garden hoe. Back at the pond I hacked away at the ice, creating a channel for her to get out of the pond but it was only a matter of time. There would be no open water for her. She couldn’t stay here.

I did some research and found a bird rescue near Albany, NY. It was run by Peter Dubacher, known locally as the bird man. He cared for 1,700 injured birds from eagles to pigeons. He didn’t turn anyone away. His sanctuary was well-known in the Berkshires and he survived and cared for the birds through donations.

The next day my husband and I drove to the pond to pick up the swan. We were in the nick of time. The swan looked terrible. She was in a dirty heap by the side of the road. Nowhere near the frozen pond or the river. She looked broken. She had given up.

We put her in a cozy bed in the back of our station wagon and drove the two hours to her new home. I couldn’t help crying when Peter put her into an indoor protected pond with about twelve other swans that couldn’t fly. Some had deformed feet like our swan. Others had lost a wing but they were all paddling around or preening on the shore as if they were just normal swans and not survivors.

Each one of the 1,700 birds at that sanctuary mattered. We left a big donation and left the swan in good hands. Peter said that the swans can be rented out in the summer to paddle around corporate ponds or museum ponds or town hall ponds. They help earn their keep and the can’t fly away so it’s a perfect situation for the rescued swan.

If I were a hunter gatherer I would have quickly killed the swan and brought it home for supper but for one brief moment another non-human creature connected with me, and we were friends.

I will always remember the swan.