Surrey has an insane amount of swans. It becomes commonplace to see them scattered everywhere. This is perhaps having to do with the fact that there is an excessive amount of parks. We had a beautiful set of parks nearby our house in England, and a little lake that curved around it. During spring, the moments were extraordinary to find the flowers blooming everywhere. England has a way with spring , perhaps it is the dreary rainy weather but flowers seem to thrive for months there. And with it, so do the swans.
Windsor Park, the official park of the queen has at least thirty fat swans which stroll through the park and bite at dogs. Swans can be very aggressive and ugly creatures. In UMass Amherst, the swans were notorious for biting college students but it is no wonder considering the abuse they took. A swan was painted pink and one was strangled once… So swans are hardly the way they are depicted in the Ugly Duckling.
Around two years ago, I saw the saddest sight imagineable. A couple of weeks before, a little swan nest had appeared. We were anxious to see the little swan babies. That particular morning, however, one swan was missing. The male swan was there, perfectly still. We saw feathers all over the lake. The mother swan was motionless in a corner and the baby egg lay exposed. We all observed it, distraught. The baby swan surely was dying or dead and the male swan would not survive without his mate. It was so sad.
The way human beings treat animals is sickening. Yet , if we only focus on environmental issues and ignore the abuse we do to each other this only leads to the same cycle of violence. We cannot fragment all of these problems, it lies deep within the moral core of our society. We just need to treat everyone with love, including animals. It sounds simplistic, but it really isn’t if you think of it. That male swan is probably a better father than many human beings would ever be…. and that’s sad.