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Much Ado About a Mute Swan: Part 10

February 23, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 10
“Then The Lake Froze”

Prince’s Famous Wing-Dance That He Performs to Woo The Ladies

Thirty days later, the cygnets hatched, but they were immediately transported to an animal rescue by Fish and Wildlife to assess their health. One of the representatives at Fish and Wildlife was putting things into motion so we could pick the cygnets up after their wings were clipped and after they were given a clean bill of health. I couldn’t wait to cuddle these little bundles of feather and down and I was preparing a permanent home for them on my property.

But, then, Fish and Wildlife stalled, and when Bill checked into it, he received a rather upsetting email back from them.

It seems a committee of representatives from Fish and Wildlife assembled before even consulting with us. And during their meeting, they made the executive decision to have the baby swans euthanized. We never had any warning.

Bill was notified via email that all of the cygnets were euthanized when they were only a week old. They never left the animal rescue alive.

When I got the news, I felt shattered. Not only were we back at square one with finding more swans for the lake, my dream of three little fluffy cygnets to whom I would play Mommy was also shattered. With all of the ‘nesting’ hormones coursing through my own veins, I took the news rather badly. I stifled tears all day long, and sometimes broke into long sobs. The thought of three beautiful lives being snuffed out “just like that” was just too much for me to take.

Prince “Running” Across the Water to Meet Me For His Daily Feeding

That’s when Bill decided to pull out all of the stops and let the local media know the situation here at Sylvia Lake. We also got our state representatives involved.

We assembled our own meeting with Derek Kilmer, Larry Seaquist, and Jan Angel. They met a large group of us homeowners at the lake and we told them our story. I also provided a demonstration of how Prince runs across the water when I call, how he takes food gently from my hands, and how he bows his head when I sing. Prince performed beautifully for a group of about 50 people. I was so proud of him!!

Prince Bowing His Head While I Sing the “Alleluja” Song by Michael W. Smith

Our state representatives sympathized with our plight and they ended up starting the process of introducing a bill to the state legislature. The bill would state that mute swans were no longer deleterious species and that homeowners would be allowed to own swans who had clipped wings and who were sexually altered; or they could own swans that were all of the same gender so that they had no reproductive capacity.

Prince Scratching His Head With His Right Foot
(If you look to your left, you’ll see part of his black webbed foot next to his head)

All along, we did not think that we would have to actually take our case to our state representatives. However, because we had made no headway with Fish and Wildlife for over a two-year period, we had to take our plight to the next highest authority– and that authority was the state government itself. We were unintentionally starting a grass-roots movement for the on-going welfare of mute swans.

Prince Is Still Hopeful That He Will Find New Love Even in His Old Age

The story of our plight spread, and pretty soon, our local ABC affiliate, KOMO-4 news, was camped out in front of my house doing a story about Prince. As will happen many times with the media, they will put their own spin on a story, even after they have heard the whole story. Their spin on the story was “Someday Prince’s Prince May Come”.

You see, long after Princess died, we found out that she had incidentally been a male. And that fact actually would explain a lot. It would explain why “Princess” would come up to my house to visit me, because perhaps ‘she’ was courting me the same way Prince had started to court me. It would also explain why people who had lived at the lake for 20 years reported seeing the swans building separate nests on several occasions. They would refer to these occasions as “marital spats” between the swans as they had always assumed Princess was female. When really, it seems they were both building separate nests to attract a random female who might happen to fly by in the spring. This would also explain why there were no cygnets and no observable mating behavior between these two swans in the spring. Sure, they would tend a nest together occasionally and take turns sitting on a rock, but they never did mating dances or stayed as close together as mating pairs normally do. These swans were more like “The Odd Couple” than “I Love Lucy”.

KOMO-4 news decided to run with the fact that Princess turned out to be a ‘Prince’ and they ended up making a rather humorous piece about it, even if it wasn’t remotely the whole story.

Here’s the link to their video where Prince receives his 2 minutes and 45 seconds worth of fame:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/82119597.html?tab=video

The state legislature was ready to come into session and Bill and I were preparing to go down and speak at the preliminary hearings. Prince’s story was far from over, and besides, he still has 12 minutes and 15 seconds worth of fame to go!!

(Stay tuned for part 11)

- Sarah Polyakov

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Much Ado About a Mute Swan: Part 9

February 20, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 9
“So How Do You Write an Effective Personal Ad for a Geriatric Mute Swan?”

Wanted: Well-aged gentleman seeks lonely hearted-lady with similar interests and tastes in life. You must love fresh flowers which I will present to you at regular intervals– especially in Spring when the lily pads are in full bloom. You must love long strolls on the lake, and have impeccable grooming habits. I especially appreciate a lady who had a round, full tail of feathers and who loves to wag them often and enthusiastically. Also, you must not be allergic to cat-tails, as my current dwelling is comprised thereof. Being over the age of 18 is also a plus, since I appreciate a lady with maturity. Signed, Your Lonely Prince-Charming-To-Be.

Remember the two young female mute swans we had lined up for Prince? The girls who were in a small apartment complex lake. Well, those two girls were young– less than a year old to be exact– and their wings weren’t clipped. They decided to ‘fly’ the proverbial ‘coop’ and they left the lake, never to be seen again.

Fish and Wildlife had re-evaluated Prince’s case, and deciding he wasn’t a threat to the environment, or the ducks, or small children, or anything else, and they decided to let him stay on our lake. After, all the only thing the amorous Prince was a ‘threat’ to was un-suspecting ladies like myself who he decided to woo with lake flowers and cat-tails. He wasn’t a picky male, since he was willing to woo a human like me, if a swan wasn’t available. Prince was lonely and he needed an outlet for his amorous feelings, even if his outlet was a 5’6″, 37-year old human female, like myself. Not only was he amenable to my height, my weight and age, he was willing to over-look the fact that I possessed no tail full of feathers, or that I wasn’t even a bird.

Prince was getting lonely and the search was back on for more suitable females within the state. It turns out that Ricky and Lucy, the swan parents of the two young girls who flew the coop, were back nesting and waiting for a new batch of cygnets to hatch.

Bill, my neighbor, jumped at the opportunity and started working with Fish and Wildlife again to get permission to purchase and transport another swan– the swans that would hatch in less than 30-days. In Bill’s letter to F&W, he clearly stated that our HOA would pay for the clipping of the wings and also for the physical alteration of the female swan so that we wouldn’t have a breeding pair.

Having a breeding pair of swans had become more than taboo at that point, since the state of Washington was trying to get rid of ALL mute swans. Oregon had already done something similar, and California was following close in step. The issue was these states wanted the native Trumpeter swan to re-establish territory and they were afraid mute swans would be competition for resources. No mind that humans were quickly building homes on wetland habitats that these swans would normally inhabit. I saw it more as a human problem for trumpeters to re-establish than a mute swan problem. How, after all, was a trumpeter swan supposed to re-establish if humans took away all of it’s habit? It was not likely, but the state, instead of blaming humans, decided to target the mute swan as the scape-goat for Trumpeter’s not re-establishing their homes in our state.

So, Bill was brave enough to take-on the red-tape of bureaucracy and start writing letters to the powers that be so that we could obtain another mate for Prince.

Meanwhile, my neighbor Glenda and I were very worried about the swan’s spirits, so we took turns with feedings. She fed him faithfully at 8am every morning, and spent quality time with him. And, I fed him in the late afternoon. Prince became quite a Romeo and started warming up to both of us. He had wing-dances for Glenda early in the morning. And, for me, he had freshly plucked cat-tails in the evening. Glenda and I mused that he was the only male we knew who was happy to see us, even if we were wearing a bathrobe and curlers, sans make-up.

Yup, Prince was quite a catch.

Bill started to make in-roads with Fish and Wildlife, and they soon gave us the impression that they would allow us to take up to three new-born cygnets on to the lake. Bill asked me if I would build housing for them and be their caretakers until they got used to the lake. I was pregnant with my second son at the time and Mommy Hormones were coursing through my veins. Of course, I would build a house, and a nest, and everything else, and probably cuddle these babies too, once they arrived. I was happier than a clam. I was even picking out baby blankets for these new cygnets. Yes, Mommy Hormones will mess with your mind!!

But, we still had about 30 days before these babies hatched, and I bided my time, researching how to build appropriate shelter and care for new baby swans that would soon be mine.

(Stay tuned for part 10)

- Sarah Polyakov

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Much Ado About A Mute Swan: Part 8

February 18, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 8

“The Original Pet”

All of the plants in my Japanese garden were frozen solid. The sky was an ice-blue and that was bad news. When it’s sunny here in winter, the temperature DROPS. The air was very still and the ice was thick. No birds were in the sky and all had fallen into a deep silence.

I trudged out to feed Prince whose water hole was holding up. The breaking of the ice that my husband did was keeping enough open water to keep him from freezing to death. Swans have very thick water-proof down which can keep them warm in even the coldest weather. As long as Prince was getting fed, he would survive. And, out of sheer necessity, I became a better bread pitcher during that week.

When Prince saw me he called to me and did an enormous tail wag and wing dance. He looked as excited as a cocker Spaniel seeing it’s owner after a day on his own. He was wagging his tail vigorously and splashing water everywhere. It was good to see he had high spirits amidst being marooned on the ice for well over a week now. He ate heartily and I returned home.

It’s always interesting to me how things that happen in childhood can trigger strong emotions in us later. And we many times we aren’t even able to pin-point the original cause.

That day, my parents were cleaning out a spare room and they dropped off some of my grandparent’s photo albums. These were flip albums from the 70′s and they smelled of my grandmother’s delicate rose scented hand cream. It was comforting to flip through the albums and know by the smell how much my grandmother must have also flipped through them to survey years long gone by. It made me feel closer to her, since she had been gone for 7 years by that time.

Then I saw a picture taken in 1977 and a long-buried memory flooded me.

It was just a simple, yellowing photograph. I was rolling on the grass with my mom’s dog Corky on a summer day just like any other. I was wearing blue patch-work overalls and I was smiling. Corky was smiling too.

He was a pure black dog– half-Scotty and half-cocker. We had rescued him from the pound when I was a baby. Even though he was technically the family dog, he was really my mom’s dog because she was the one who fed him, tended to him, and allowed him to snuggle on her bed at night. Still, I enthusiastically played with him for hours on end. But, he was also an older dog and would sometimes get tired. He’d crawl under one of the side tables in the living room and emit a low growl to let me know he needed some rest. And then I’d be off for other adventures.

The memory that flooded me was of a summer night in 1977. We were living on a rented farm in Ohio while my dad was in his first year of a PhD program. My mom worked 60-70 hours a week at an extremely stressful job in order to pay the bills. She had a very demanding boss and sometimes he would call her into work late in the evening after she had returned home. And she’d have to go whenever he called, or he would threaten her job. He would tell her he could get anyone off the street to replace her in a heartbeat. And she’d leave and make the long drive into town to finish up sales proposals at the radio station where she worked.

That night when she got the call, Corky and I were in the front yard playing. Corky was on a very long chain since that yard wasn’t fenced. It was a hot evening, and my mom, frazzled, came outside and announced she had to go back to work to re-edit some copy and sales proposals. As usual, they weren’t good enough for the chauvinistic station owner who loved to wield power over his staff. I remember feeling my mom’s stress and frustration as she hurried to get into the old Mustang. I asked her to please stay and play with us but she mumbled something about getting fired and slammed the door to her car.

I went back to the house and as I was opening the door, I heard a high-pitched screeching and Corky was yelping in pain. My mom got out of the car and was hysterical. My dad said when Corky saw her leaving, he broke his chain and ran under her car before she even had time to react. My dad was in the farther part of the yard and couldn’t stop Corky in time.

My mom put me in the back seat of the Mustang, and wrapped Corky in a white sheet and handed him to me. She frantically drove to the nearest veterinarian and banged on the door for someone to answer. It was about 7:00pm and they were closed for the evening. She drove some back roads to get to another vet. The sheets were turning scarlet faster than I could think. Corky whimpered and looked up at me with soft, brown eyes. Sometimes he’d let out a huge yelp and sometimes he’d tremble from head to tail. I asked him to please hang on and told him we were getting help. At some point during the drive he stopped moving, and I told my mom to hurry. She pulled over, and looked back. Corky and I were both soaked in blood, and Corky was gone.

I don’t remember how long it took to get home but it felt like an eternity, with limp Corky laying in my arms.

My mom dug a grave at the far end of the property while the sun was setting. Corky lay beside the grave in his sheet. My mom buried him but I refused to look. She came back to the house and we sat on the front steps just as the sun went behind the horizon. She asked me how I was feeling, and I remember crying a little, but then I stopped. I said, “I know that you just buried a shell– just like a sea shell where the owner went away. The real Corky is in Heaven now and he is okay. The Corky you buried wasn’t him at all and I know one day I will see him again, too”. I remember the profound feeling I felt that all life was connected, and that life was infinite, even if I had just witnessed the death of a body. The body was not us, it was simply a house we use here and now, but it’s not the real us.

And that’s all I remember of that evening.

But, after I saw that picture, and after I re-lived that memory in its entirety, I realized that was one of the triggers for my profound sadness when Princess died. And I realized it was the thing that kept bidding me to return to the ice, day after day, to make sure Prince would survive the freeze.

And soon after that, the lake ice slowly melted, until Prince could finally swim freely again. But now, we were back to the problem of finding Prince a mate. He was becoming more and more attached to me as the days went on, but we all knew he needed a swan friend, not a human friend, for his companion.

The two female swans were still hope on the horizon, but the Fish and Wildlife Department started to push back. In fact, they even decided to re-evaluate Prince’s status as being grandfathered in. Prince’s case went up for review, and if he didn’t pass the review, Fish and Wildlife would have him taken off the lake and euthanized.

(Stay tuned for part 9)

- Sarah Polyakov

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Much Ado About a Mute Swan: Part 7

February 16, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 7
“Then The Lake Froze”

Courtesy of International Bird Rescue & Research

Living in Washington State at sea level, we rarely see snow and ice, if ever. You have to go far into the mountains for that, and even then, we don’t have the best snow in the country for skiing and snowboarding. The temperatures rarely dip below freezing, even in the winter. So, when the lake started to freeze, I didn’t think much of it.

But, it was annoying because the water in front of my dock froze and Prince could not access his feeder. I had to trespass on to someone’s else vacant land and access their dock in order to feed him. But, there was ice there too, and so he couldn’t reach his corn and grain. I had to throw bread 20′ feet out into the water. As I figured out, slices of wheat bread can make pretty good frisbees if you don’t have the plastic kind available.

This went on for about 5 days, but then the temperature dipped into the teens overnight and when I woke up, the lake was frozen solid. I scrambled for the other dock, and there was Prince, swimming in a small puddle of water that was about 3′ feet wide. He was still about 20′ feet away from the shore. The dock was frozen solid and was precarious to even walk on. I kept fearing I’d fall over the edge and wondering what I’d do since I was there all alone.

All I could do was throw bread out to him and most times it wouldn’t even hit his puddle. He’d attempt to stretch his long neck to the slices of bread, and that was hit and miss. He barely got any food because I wasn’t such a good pitcher.

I wrung my hands all day because the temperature was hovering in the twenties and the ice on the lake was getting thicker. I talked to my neighbor JW and we both agreed that Prince wouldn’t last through the night if this kept up. From where her house sat, she could see him swimming in circles in his puddle and she said it was just torturous to watch. We were both so worried and didn’t know what to do.

I contacted some folks on the board of the HOA and they let me know that they had never devised any cold weather plans for the swan, and they reassured me that swans were hearty creatures and could survive such a cold spell. I asked permission to take Prince off the lake with the help of an animal rescue team. The HOA told me that wouldn’t be possible to do. They feared that taking Prince off the lake would frighten him too badly and that he would be injured during a rescue. They told me just to sit tight and keep throwing bread out to him if I could.

Later that afternoon, as the sun was setting, I went to visit Prince again and feed him. His puddle had gotten even smaller. His body was almost completely encased in ice. I stayed there until the sun went down thinking about how to help. When the sun set, I finally went home.

It was about 9:30pm at night, and I had this horrible image pop into my mind. The temperature was dropping again and I feared I would find Prince frozen in the ice in the morning. I burst into tears.

My husband asked me what was wrong and I broke down. I was choking through sobs as I explained how afraid I was for Prince. I had just lost one swan and now the thought of losing another one in such an inhumane way was just awful. I told him I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I was just too upset.

He told me he was going to go break up the ice.

We went downstairs and got one of our battery powered lanterns and we bundled him up. He grabbed a sturdy shovel from the garage and snuck onto the property with the dock located nearest to Prince. He found a row boat there on the bank and launched it into the water.

I opened the windows to look and watch for lantern light. I heard an enormous clanging and banging coming from the ice. The acoustics were such that the racket was reverberating through the entire neighborhood and it sounded like a train wreck.

Pretty soon, I heard some sirens in the distance, and bundled my son and took off to find my husband. I took a back way to access the property and yelled, “I think the Police are coming!!” He got off the lake immediately and we ran home.

We watched from our house as two police cars patrolled the neighborhood and we breathed a sigh of relief when they finally left.

We hoped and prayed that my husband had broken enough ice up around Prince that he wouldn’t be frozen in to the ice during the night.

When I woke up the next morning, I grabbed bread and raced to the dock. I could hardly look.

But, there was Prince, swimming around in his 3′ foot hole again and he was so happy to see me. He raised his wings and made a joyous sound. I threw out bread and he ate very well. My “snow-bird” was safe for the moment.

But, there was still the problem of more plummeting temperatures overnight and no melting for the lake in sight. I was becoming very frustrated and I didn’t know what to do. The lake wouldn’t be melting soon, but the HOA told me that I was not allowed to take the swan off the lake and deliver him to Sue’s rescue center. I was between a rock in a hard place and all I could do was wait it out. I was praying for the weather to break and for the ice to melt, but there was no indication that was going to happen.

Prince’s life was in limbo and each morning I woke up I didn’t know whether or not he’d still be alive.

(Stay tuned for part 8 )

- Sarah Polyakov

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Much Ado About a Mute Swan: Part 6

February 5, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 6
“Swan Eye for the Human Guy”

I think every woman knows when her Prince comes. I knew my Prince had come when I met the man who elaborately bathed himself before dining with me every evening. Personal hygiene is always a plus and it’s certainly difficult to find a man these days who takes it under such careful consideration. I would watch as he would meticulously scrub and smooth his head. Then, catching me watching him prepare himself, he would hurry to choose just the right flowers. And after he had chosen and picked these flowers himself, only then, would he dare to approach me. And the first thing he did, before even saying hello, was to lay the flowers at my feet before me. And then he would wait, unmoving, bowing in reverence, until I finally said ‘thank you’, and he saw that his gift of wildflowers had made me happy. After that, he would gratefully eat the dinner I had set before him. Now, that’s a real Prince, if you ask me.

The only problem is, I am not describing a human Prince, but rather, I am describing Prince the swan.

Mute Swan | Cygnus olor photo

A month earlier when looking into possible reasons for Princesses’ death, I found out that the swans weren’t getting fed the right diet of food and that the plant material in the lake was not sufficient. My neighbor and I drilled a feeder to the dock, and Prince started to get daily feedings of cracked corn, layered wild-game bird pellet, all with some of his favorite wheat bread thrown into the mix. This was Prince’s favorite stew.

His feeding schedule became regular and when he figured that out, he started to watch my yard for me every day. And when it was feeding time, I would walk out into the yard, make my loud ‘Trrrrilll” call, and Prince would know it was feeding time.

I would come to the lakeside, but he wouldn’t approach me immediately, because, well, he wasn’t well-groomed enough. I would watch him dive his body under water, and fluff his wings, and smooth his head.

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Much Ado About A Mute Swan – Part 5

February 3, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 5
“Some Day My Prince Will Come.”


It was a cold Saturday morning and frost had formed on the raw branches of my Japanese maple trees. The small lake was perfectly still as the lone male swan silently parted the water and created a beautiful wake in his path. I grabbed some bread to see if I could coax him to the dock for a feeding.

He saw me and turned course towards the dock. He swam with a furious intent that disturbed the water and the lake was no longer a peaceful scene in the biting morning air. The eerie stillness had been broken. He puffed up his wings and his neck and swam back and forth, back and forth, in front of my feet, evening me wearily. Finally, he stuck his long neck out, and started biting my black boots, and then frightened by his own audacity, quickly retreated, and started swimming back and forth again with puffed feathers. I offered him a piece of wheat bread and softly said, “Hi, I am sorry about your girl, I miss her too.” He eyed me and then the bread, and then swam off, without even taking a bite.

Somehow his grief had turned to anger. This was fascinating to watch because I had read that some birds had a depth and range of emotions, but I had never seen it first-hand. I had no scientific background and could only intuit what I was seeing. The swan swam to the other side of the lake. I called out to him with a trilling sound, but he swam behind some reeds. I went back to my house because he was obviously snubbing me. I think the art of snubbing is universal, whether you are a human or animal.

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Much Ado About A Mute Swan – Part 4

January 29, 2010 By

MUCH ADO ABOUT A MUTE SWAN: Part 4
“The Coldest Day of December”

The interesting thing about mute swans is that they mate for life. They reach maturity around 2 years of age and that’s when they start scouring the pond for available males and females. The pond turns into a veritable bar scene on a Friday night. Female swans swim by, preening their white feathers, coyly bowing their heads, shunning males who seem to be too interested, and wagging their enormous tails only feet away from the male swans. Male swans seem to go crazy over the females when they wag their tails and quickly swim away, returning a ‘come hither’ glance as they make their escape. The male swans are all about keeping themselves immaculate. They have very elaborate bathing rituals where they can be seen dunking their entire bodies under water, then doing flapping dances to shed the water, then dunking themselves again, and finally smoothing the feathers on their heads by rubbing them backwards against their long backs. I have to admit, the first time I saw this behavior, I thought the swan was either drowning or convulsing and I got really panicked. The male swan also has an elaborate dance he performs in front of the female, and the best male dancer wins the hearts of every female on the pond. But, in swan society, males don’t keep harems, so the best female wins, and then they pair bond for life.

Mute Swan mating dance

Swans are excellent parents. Both the male and the female swan sit on the nest while awaiting their eggs to hatch. Once the cygnets are hatched, both parents take equal care in the feeding and raising of the children. When the cygnets are first hatched, their feathers aren’t thick enough and they tend to catch cold quite easily. But, it’s important they get into the water, even on their first day after hatching, so that they can learn how to forage pond plants, which is their natural food source. If a cygnet is too small and weak, the mother swan will place him on her back and take a swim around the lake.

Prince and Princess never had children, but they built elaborate nests and would sometimes drag small stones into the nest and take turns sitting on them. It was quite a sight to see, but I also felt sorry for them because it became apparent how hard-wired the instinct is to have a next generation of children. They did this nesting ritual for 23 years together.

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