Polly Pullar shares her love for whooper swans
Renowned nature writer Polly Pullar takes a lighthearted look at rural life.
IT was a sharp November afternoon, the light fading across the sea, cloud drifting between the islands of Rum and Eigg as I stood on the shore at Achateny, in Ardnamurchan.
The dogs had been running on the strand and were now at my heel. We had been watching a pair of sea eagles perched lazily on a skerry exposed by the tide, and we were about to head back to the cottage for tea.
Then I heard it. Almost a fanfare, bugle calls coming across the bay. I stood motionless as tendrils of mist rose from the boggy headland behind me, a birch in silhouette against a watery winter sky.
The dogs pricked up their ears, heads cocked, listening intently, too.
Whooper swans, spectres from the far north, were coming. Soon I could see their elegant forms appearing through the mist as they travelled low over the sea.
The cries of whooper swans are hauntingly evocative, and epitomise the wild environments they frequent.
Though most of us are familiar with the large mute swan with its orange bill and dark legs, it is the whooper that is the truly wild swan, the bird that inspired Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, “Swan Lake”, a swan that is worshipped in various parts of the world.
The Japanese refer to the whooper as the Angel of Winter, and it is also sometimes called the whistling swan on account of the sound of its great white wings beating against the air and creating a mesmerising winnowing noise.
During excavations of an ancient tomb, archaeologists discovered the skeleton of a baby that had been enshrined in a swan’s wing. Was this a sign that swans were also viewed as protectors and guides in the spirit world, perhaps?
Some 4,000 whooper swans fly to Scotland to overwinter on our nutrientrich lochs, rivers, estuaries, and tidal mud flats.
With black legs and yellow bill with its black tip, it is easy to differentiate them from the larger resident mute swans.
They seem to carry with them the essence of the savage boreal regions where they rear their young.
Whoopers pair for life, though if one of them dies, the partner will quickly seek another mate.
There are only a few sporadic records of whoopers staying here to nest.
These are usually injured birds that have been unable to migrate back to their summer breeding grounds.
Though changes in agriculture mean that bigger machinery leaves far less gleanings on winter stubble fields, wild swans have benefitted from the increased production of oil seed rape, and will also readily feed on brock potatoes left after harvest.
Sadly, many are shot at in other countries, and in recent years, numbers of whoopers and their close relative, the equally lovely Bewick swan, have plummeted.
Last winter my son Freddy rang me from his home near Auchterarder as he could see hundreds of swans feeding on the impressive floodwaters of the River Earn.
We spent the next day watching a vast spread out flock over a large area, and followed the little narrow back roads around his home to try to secure a clearer view.
The storm-battered, swollen river was punctuated with a mass of white, whilst other groups of swans paddled and guddled on the sodden fields.
We could see mute swans amongst them, too, but the majority of the swans were whoopers. It was the biggest flock I had ever seen.
Whilst the flooding might not have been suiting us, it seemed to have lured these wonderful wild spirits, and they were taking full advantage.
Every now and then something disturbed them and a group took to the sky.
The sound of their wings and melodic orchestrations filled the air, and as the light from the west faded to an apricot glow, it added to the mystery of an unforgettable, ethereal encounter. n
We’ll take another “Breath Of Country Air” in December 30 issue.