A Whiter Shade Of Pale

Continuing the loose (and completely unintentional) theme of birds this week - which began on Monday with the Aldcliffe nesters, and continued yesterday with this statuesque figure - today's blip is of an old friend of mine. Or enemy, depending on how you look at it.

About four years ago, I was working in a canalside pub on the edge of town. While our busy periods of service (generally sunny days) were hectic beyond description, we also had more than our fair share of soul-numbing, brain-rotting, suicide-inducing days when barely a single customer graced the bar. It was on one such day that a pair of swans first appeared on our stretch of the cut. This was hands-down the most exciting thing that had happened at work since I'd won the All-Barstaff Hangman Competition. We decided that they were the pub's mascots, and to that end, gave them names: Mr and Mrs Swan. We were, if nothing else, an imaginative bunch.

Before long, our adopted happy couple heard the pitter-patter (or splish-splash) of tiny webbed feet. Six grey cygnets swam the canal alongside the adults, and from their earliest hours, they came to know me and the other staff. I fed them at least once a day, even on days off, and spent my on-shift breaks letting them eat scraps of bread from my palm. Although the two adults remained stand-offish, their offspring quickly became incredibly tame, happy enough to have their necks stroked or to hop up on the towpath next to you while you had an after-work pint.

With that in mind, I was pretty upset to find one day that one of the cygnets had a fish-hook embedded in the side of its face. It was in obvious distress - as you would be - and so after a hurried phone-call, I found myself assisting a lovely RSPCA lady in snatching it out of the water and removing the hook. This was far from an easy operation. Aside from the fact that Mr and Mrs Swan were highly irate about us manhandling one of their cygnets, and had to be distracted by a crack team of our staff lobbing loaves of Warburtons in the canal, our patient itself was clearly terrified. All I could do was hold it tight while RSPCA Lady did her job.

It's one of the strangest experiences I've ever had, cradling a swan in my arms. It was more or less adult-sized at this point in time, and had managed to coil its neck around my arm. Its body was cold and quivering, wet enough to have soaked my own clothes, and I could feel its heart beating rapidly through the feathers. I did my best to hold its head still while the hook was carefully removed. Once the job was done we plopped it back into the cut, which was rather well-timed being as the staff had run out of Warburtons, and Mr Swan was starting to look like a bouncer with a chip on his shoulder.

Even after this impromptu episode of Animal Hospital the cygnets remained tame and affectionate, but Mummy and Daddy were a lot more wary, and on occasion openly hostile to me. Before long the brood were old enough to begin flying, and eventually took their leave permanently. The last I saw of them was with a large flock out on the Lune estuary in early 2007; two of them, still speckled with grey feathers, peeled away from the others and flew over to me (though to be fair, I don't think their thought processes during this incident were any more complex or emotional than: "Hooray! It's The Food Man! He does deliveries now!")

As for Mummy and Daddy, they've stayed on the canal. They haven't produced any more offspring; I'd imagine they're entering swan-retirement. They'll still swim over to you if they're in the mood, and that's how I got this decent snap of Mrs Swan. Does she still remember me? Well, just after I took this picture she tried to eat my camera, so I'd say she knows exactly who I am. Never expect gratitude off a swan; they'll always let you down.