It is not always possible to admire their beauty and grace. It turns out they can also be aggressive! And here is a little story that was posted on Facebook at Epiphany.
In the little town of Drohobych (Western Ukraine) a man decided to wash away his sins by dipping in a pond where swans were swimming gracefully. And when he surfaced, he came under a swan attack! At first he tried to wave them off, but without success. He had to take up a threatening boxer’s stance right in the icy water, but even that did not save him. What saved him was running for the shore.
From the side it looked very comical, but in fact the situation was serious, because a swan’s wing-stroke has great force and, when attacking a person, can break an arm.
This case reminded me of another story I watched on the Norwegian news a year ago. In a Norwegian kommune N (I did not remember the name) there lived a bully of a swan. And he had so worn out the local residents that by a court ruling! they decided to destroy him. Such a drastic decision did not come easily to them, and they thought about it in the kommune for more than one day, but what happened, happened.
So we continue to admire swan beauty, but we also do not forget about distance, especially when there are small children beside you.