The Urban Pantheist

A glance at a guidebook showed that the nearby coastal village of Llandudno had some kind of Alice in Wonderland connection. I'll let this squirrel explain:



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The corner of The Riverway and Brookline Ave., early afternoon last Sunday.


About 50 feet away, on the Muddy River, about 28 hours later.

photos by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #058: Mute swan Cygnus olor

The swan is symbolic of elegance, grace, and wealth. Mute swans have been introduced to many North American locations, in the hope that this bird's presence would bestow these qualities. In Boston, the symbolism is further emphasized by the famous Swan Boats. A pair of mute swans shares the public garden lagoon with the boats in summer. In 2005 the pair was found to be two individuals, that while they may have been pair bonded, were both female.

In Europe, where mute swans are native, they were hunted as game birds. They were domesticated for the table, which helped keep the wild population from being hunted to extinction. It also helped make the sight of swans on the lake of an estate something to be desired and expected. The beauty of the bird has since eclipsed its value as a food animal.

Mute swans are notable for being very large birds and for showing violent territorial behavior. They are on the very short list of flighted birds that can seriously injure a human, and occasionally do. The long neck of a swan allows it to feed on aquatic plants out of the reach of other dabbling birds. This feeding method can disturb the ecology of a lake or pond by uprooting the plants and muddying the water. Massachusetts Audubon Society ornithologist Elissa Landre believes that mute swans have the potential to become an ecological management problem much as Canada geese have.

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