Low-slung stratus clouds filter storm light in a wild sky that floats above the Illinois River. Waterfowl fill the air. Their calls animate the landscape; a cacophony of Greater white-fronted geese is punctuated by deep, resonant honks emanating from above. It is early January, and swans have arrived.
I scan the clouds and wait for swans to appear. I see only sky. The wild calls intensify, and the shape-shifting clouds condense into life; a distillation of light and a gift from the heavens take shape in the mist. A stunning white commotion appears, flying low with outstretched necks, calling wildly while gracefully descending to the water. They glide to a stop, trumpeting all the while; I breathe and return to my senses. I am lost in Swan.
The swans now appear impossibly large, and when they come to rest next to the ducks, the ducks look tiny. All other waterfowl make way for these new visitors who bring emphatic life to the wetlands.
The swans are at ease, resting in the moment, held by thousands of content voices.
It is a miracle that such beauty should fall from the sky and come to rest in our midst. The pure, soft, rustling of life. This family of swans is now chatting, posturing, and taking up space. They are secure in their largeness. When another family of swans approaches, it becomes clear that swans can be beautiful and aggressive simultaneously. As the two families come together, they face each other, and much head bobbing, posturing, and honking ensue. Two swans break from their families and swim within six feet of each other. There is a brief chase, and tension subsides as the groups drift apart.
Everything the swans do seems dramatic and impressive due to their size. As a result, they have always attracted people's attention. This caused them to nearly vanish from the earth.
Trumpeter Swans are still present in the world due to human care. They are one of the largest flying birds. Due to overhunting, only 69 Trumpeter Swans remained in the United States in 1935. People willing to advocate for restraint and the inherent value of life helped bring them back from near extinction. Swans are a manifestation of people striving to defend beauty in the world. Swans show us the power of optimism and hope.
As the sun rises and clears the mist off the water, hundreds of acres of marsh come into view. A dense cloud of snow geese fills the air with a roar as they descend into open water in the center of the refuge. A large bank of white rims the open water a few hundred yards away. I scan with my binoculars and see hundreds of swans resting in a large flock. Some birds are floating in the water, while others are standing on ice. Many have their heads tucked into their feathers. Others are bathing and preening.
The swans are remarkably relaxed, considering the cold and windy conditions. Their core body temperature is around 100 degrees, but their feet are near freezing. They manage this by having legs and feet that are mostly bones and tendons. There is little fluid in the cells of their feet. They also have a fine, dense net of blood vessels that connect their feet to their body. The blood flowing to the body is warmed by the blood flowing down to the feet. This helps keep their core temperature high. It is also likely that birds have few pain receptors in their feet. Knowing this helps me appreciate their adaptations, but looking at them makes me cold.
Being out in the elements and feeling the wind and cold is part of the appeal for me. I love visiting the Illinois River. It is a ribbon of life. The world's ugliness, distractions, and furious mechanical time disappear when I enter the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. The birds, water, wind, trees, and wild sky are all-encompassing. This is a return to the center, to a core aspect of meaning and wisdom. We need this refuge as much as the birds. We are all meant to experience the magic of life and to perceive everyday beauty that magnifies our spirit to such an extent that we are unbound from the confines of societal consciousness.
Unbound and free to fly. The wind and light wash over me, and I gradually become more attuned to the life of the river valley—the world as it used to be, as it should be. My mind and body relax as I take in the sights and sounds of tens of thousands of birds that comprise a wildness that rides the wind.
The same wind animates the clouds, which make up a vast layered mystery adorned with silver-rimmed thunder and streaked with ethereal sunbeams that shine into our eyes and invite us to reciprocate and shine our light back into the world. A quiet and humble light, a twinkle in our eye.
I am not the only one in love with the sky. In The Marginalian, Maria Popova shared Virginia Woolf's idea that illness and slowing down lead to a fascination with the sky.
"In health, Woolf argues, we maintain the illusion, both psychological and outwardly performative, of being cradled in the arms of civilization and society. Illness jolts us out of it, orphans us from belonging. But it also does something else, something beautiful and transcendent: In piercing the trance of busyness and obligation, it awakens us to the world about us, whose smallest details, neglected by our regular societal conscience, suddenly throb with aliveness and magnetic curiosity. It renders us 'able, perhaps for the first time in years, to look round, to look up — to look, for example, at the sky.'"
"Now, lying recumbent, staring straight up, the sky is discovered to be something so different from this that really it is a little shocking. This then has been going on all the time without our knowing it! — this incessant making up of shapes and casting them down, this buffeting of clouds together, and drawing vast trains of ships and wagons from North to South, this incessant ringing up and down of curtains of light and shade, this interminable experiment with gold shafts and blue shadows, with veiling the sun and unveiling it, with making rock ramparts and wafting them away." - Virginia Woolf
We too often let these everyday miracles waft away unseen. Fortunately, swans are a conspicuous miracle that can capture people's attention.
A close observer of birds in the 1800s noticed that beauty is ephemeral, best observed up close, and dependent on relaxed birds.
"To form a perfect conception of the beauty and elegance of these Swans, you must observe them when they are not aware of your proximity, and as they glide over the waters of some secluded inland pond. On such occasions, the neck, which at other times is held stiffly upright, moves in graceful curves, now bent forward, now inclined backwards over the body. Now with an extended scooping movement the head becomes immersed for a moment, and with a sudden effort a flood of water is thrown over the back and wings, when it is seen rolling off in sparkling globules, like so many large pearls. The bird then shakes its wings, beats the water, and as if giddy with delight shoots away, gliding over and beneath the surface of the liquid element with surprising agility and grace. Imagine, reader, that a flock of fifty Swans are thus sporting before you, as they have more than once been in my sight, and you will feel, as I have felt, more happy and void of care than I can describe." - John James Audubon (1843)
The resonant calls of the swans are asking us to honor our inherent goodness, to be hopeful, and to come together on their behalf to delight in life. We need more people wrapped up and held in "a perfect commotion of silk and linen."
Swan
Did you see it, drifting, all night on the Black River?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silver air,
an arm full of white blossoms,
a perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings: a snowbank, a bank of lilies
biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
a shrill, dark music, like the rain, pelting the trees,
like a waterfall
knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
a white cross streaming across the sky, its feet
like black leaves, its wings like the stretching light
of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertains to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Mary Oliver
Thank you!
This begins so poetically that I almost find others’ pietry unnecessary. But I do appreciate what you found for us!!!
The trumpeteer swan must be somewhat bigger than our two species of swan in Denmark. It reminds me of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by our national author, Hans Christian Andersen.
Once, during summer, I watched how a male swan defended his wife and offspring against some human canoeing people. 🦢
Thanks for this lovely tribute to a graceful creature. I’ve only observed mute swans here in the Pine Barrens, but we had a very dramatic newcomer who was attacking a mated pair. A birdwatcher told me it had also gone after cars and dogs, and the rangers were trying to capture it for its own safety. I managed to catch some of its behavior on video.
https://thomaspluck.substack.com/p/the-savage-swan-of-thundergust-lake