I wonder where swans land on the animal kingdom’s IQ scale. As winter approached several years ago, a swan remained still too long on the surface of the lake on a cold evening. The result was that it became frozen in place and could not free itself.
Unlike the swan in Ann’s account, these two swans were on ice about the time the lake froze, but did not become trapped.
Several of us noticed the predicament and would have helped, but the ice would never have supported the weight of any of us at that point. The sad end to story is that the swan became a feast for various birds that were hanging out at the lake at that time. Whether this suggests that swans have a low intelligence level or that we humans just don’t fully understand them, the end this swan faced seemed not only sad, but baffling.
-Ann Swain
