Dan's Papers - March 28, 2008

At 10 a.m. this past Monday morning, I drove down Woods Lane in East Hampton under the great stand of elm trees that over-arch that road and made the famous 90-degree left turn that puts you on Main Street of that beautiful town. Ahead of me, at the far end of Main Street, was the 300-year-old Hook Mill windmill on the Town Green. Immediately to my right, just 20 yards away, was Town Pond and its great 66-foot flagpole, a former mast from the shipwreck of the John Milton that washed onto the rocks in East Hampton in 1858.

I think we are all familiar with the two mute white swans that inhabit that pond. They are not migrant creatures. They live here year-round. And this week, as spring is just breaking, they apparently felt it was time to begin their new family. Mom was sitting on a huge nest of sticks and mud that she built as a little island in the shallow waters of the southeastern corner of the pond. Dad was paddling around at the other end of the pond.

I really don't know how far down it is to the bottom there in that corner. But I can tell you that this nest is not floating. Mom and her husband have built this thing. And now she is sitting on it. I have been told by those in the know that she will be sitting on it for the next 50 days. During the first 25 days, underneath her, the eggs will appear at the rate of one a day. Some will survive in the nest and some will not. At the end of the 25 days she will have under there, not for you to see of course, about ten eggs. She will then spend the next 25 days warming them up, at which time, on or about May 15, in one day they will all hatch, all tiny and grey and fuzzy, by popping out from under Mom and jumping into the water to begin their little swan lessons.

Some of this will consist of them following Mom and Dad around in a long line. Other things to do will consist of ducking down to get clean and then shaking vigorously to dry, eating bugs, or waiting around for Mom and Dad to return with the food, and in getting into squabbles with some of the others as they learn their place, quite literally, in the pecking order.

Astonished at finding Mom high on her perch, I drove down to the flagpole and then around to the James Lane side of the pond to have a closer look from that side. I took the photos you see here. Then I stepped a few feet closer to get a better shot and Daddy swan, out in the middle of the pond sailing along, without so much as even a glance or thought, turned toward me and paddled over. When he got to the other side of the nest, he stopped and looked at me with these beady yellow eyes. It was a very clear message. Not one step farther, please.

Throughout our entire encounter, Mom gave no indication that she even noticed me. She was a busy little lady, putting her head in the water to get bits of more mud to put on the foundation of the nest, or grabbing bits of reeds with her beak to then find loose spots in the nest that she could work to more tightly weave it together.

During all this, Dad stood bodyguard. He hung out, not doing much except watching in amazement as perhaps many of the male species on this planet do when confronted by a female behaving in this manner.

He'd watch. He'd lounge about. If he were another species, a human perhaps, I could see where he might be right about to light up a cigar, but always with one eye on anybody who might get too close.

I think most people might say that the most dangerous creature in the world is either a lion or a tiger. For those of us who live here on the East End, we all know who's really the boss. Any lion, any person, comes close to that nest, look out. Thus we have these great mute swans living among us, something that we seem to like.

There are married swan couples in many of the ponds on the East End. They make the pond their home year-round, and if it gets too iced in the winter, they temporarily fly off to another pond nearby that hasn't iced. Our East Hampton mute swans, when it gets too cold, fly off to Hook Pond, and when that ices up, to Georgica Pond, which because of its level of salinity is the last of the ponds that ice. But they will always come back to Town Pond. That's their home. The others are just for visiting.

As I watched these beautiful mute white swans, a whole bunch of mallards flew over and landed in the Pond at the far end. There were about 20 of them. And they were foraging for food. Some waddled about on the land. Some splashed around in the water.

Before this spring is out, one particular pair of these mallards will declare themselves to be making Town Pond their home, and they will then mate here and raise their young much like their much larger cousins, the mute white swans, do.

They will, of course, have to get the approval of the mute whites before they can actually do that. Mallards have long ago learned, just like we have, that mute whites can be pretty vicious in the pecking department. Better to ask permission about taking up residence with them first.

As I watched, about a half dozen mallards came fairly close to the nest. Mom was busily weaving away with her little sticks. Dad gave them the beady-eyed stare. They flew away.