Dan's Papers - October 19, 2007 - Traffic Alert: East Hampton Town Pond

This is a traffic alert. When passing Town Pond in East Hampton, coast quietly alongside it and keep your eyes ahead on the road in front of you. Press the button that locks all the doors. Do not stop. Do not get out of your car. Do not make eye contact.

What we have here right now is a very dangerous situation. The momma and poppa swans, who have glided along proudly all summer with their little gaggle of babies paddling frantically in a line behind them, now are heading up a very different family. Gone are the six fluffy, little babies that needed shelter and protection. In their place are six full-grown teenagers, all wild with menace and attitude, who are out to show their parents what they can do. Stick your hand out of the car and one of them will grab it by the fingers and rip your arm out of its socket. They are no longer a gaggle. They are a gang. Keep your windows closed and the doors locked. Strap your babies in their seats. And whatever you do, don't try to make friends with or feed these animals. After last year, we don't want to lose anybody else.

Who can forget that awful day last autumn, October 23, when that couple from Maryland pulled over, got out of their car and tried to pet and make friends with the swans? I don't even want to describe what became of them. There was enough written about them at the time.

The Mayor and police department said there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about this situation except wait it out. The swans are not an endangered species. Yet. But after the attack last year, environmentalists came in and said that the East Hampton swans seem to be a very special and rare new strain of these creatures. There had been talk about shooting the swans for what they did. Or darting them and transporting them to, say, Red Hook or some other rough neighborhood. There's a big bay there. Red Hook's got the Gowanus Canal running alongside it. But the environmentalists said that our swans have orange stripes on their razor sharp black beaks and a second orange stripe on each of their razor sharp webbed talons. The usual white swans that everybody knows are supposed to have red stripes. The environmentalists were still talking about it when the swans, the same two that are always here, but last year with six babies, upped and flew away one night. So nobody ever did find out what we were dealing with here. Until the parents came back this year. It's them with the orange stripes.

What we've all got to hope for now is a quick end to this long Indian summer that we've so enjoyed for the past months. It's fooled the swans. Normally, this gang would have left by now and would be busy fending off predators in the fields of North Carolina or Georgia. But they are still here, waiting for fall, and they are pretty confused and angry. They've got nothing to do. Watch out.