Allan Appel Photo
Not all is well with the mute swans on the Quinnipiac River.
Tuesday morning I noticed an oddly ragged pile of ice floating in the river. I didn’t pay it much notice. Eventually I came across a scene that was either a tender act of attempted rescue, or a bloodthirsty meal.
When a swan swam near the ragged pile and began to peck at it, I figured it was doing exactly what I was doing at the moment: looking for a little breakfast.
This species is big and eats a lot of vegetation, is very territorial, and drives out other species.
Beauty And/Or The Beast?
Because of that there’s a lot controversy in Connecticut about the control of swan population, which is legal. (Click here on the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection site for a good review of the issue.)
Tuesday morning something different from the usual riverine grazing was taking place, and what I had noticed now riveted my attention.
As I picked up my binoculars to get a better look, the pile turned out itself to be a swan.
A dead one. It did not move as the other swan repeatedly nudged it.
(Reader alert: The following video contains footage that some people might possibly find upsetting.)
The story does not end there. The living swan pecked away at the dead one, pushing the floating white mound under one of our finger docks, to where I could no longer see it.
While this unfolded, three or four other swans observed from a distance, but did not come near. Click on the play arrow for a video of this activity.
As I took pictures, I noticed something different about the swan attending to the dead swan body. Its own plumage looked very different from the others.
Its feathers were not laid down neatly on the back, but were somehow lumped up, as if no longer soft, but somehow congealed.
They stood up like stiff, white cotton candy.
This looked pretty, like a Marie Antoinette-ish coiffure. But as it turned out, it was not a sign of health.
Eventually the swan with the stiff plumage swam away from the corpse and approached the three observers. They did not wait for it join them.
They turned and took off, beating their wings noisily on the water, until they elevated. The swan with the cotton candy feathers tried to join them. It taxied along the surface of the water as they had done. Yet unlike them, this swan did not elevate.
Its wings were no longer working as they should, and it dropped back to the surface in a few seconds.
Was the death of one swan preceded by this problem with the feathers? Will the second swan die? And was the dying natural?
I asked myself that question because a day or two before we noticed the swans flocking to these same finger docks.
Two people we did not recognize from the condominium or the neighborhood were feeding the swans lots of food. I was rushing out, and noticed at least two dozen of the animals flocking by the give-away. They were beside two white shopping bags at the end of the dock, out of which the food, whatever it was, was being scooped.
I have no idea if that incident and today’s cancelled flight and dying are in any way connected.
Yet I wonder.
Also, would this monogamous, long-lived, always hungry, and aggressive species make a meal out of a fellow member? Was this swan cannibalism I saw? Or was the swan’s beak checking for vital signs and trying to help?
The Independent‘s ornithology writer, Mark Aronson, is out of town and email range this week and could not provide perspective.
Mute swan experts are encouraged to offer their theories in the comments section below.
Mute Swan are an invasive menace. If it has a dark bill, its native and should be respected. If it has an orange bill, kill it and eat it.