Friday, September 28, 2007

Trumpeter Swans


Today couldn't be more beautiful: blue sky, drifts of brown crunchy leaves piled up against every windbreak...
The swans were floating just off the shoreline of Boston Lake this morning. They moved farther out into open water as I approached to take their photo. Too bad I only had my ancient digital cam-corder on hand. Trumpeters are exquisitely beautiful, and that was not exactly captured with this shot.
More beautiful than its gracefulness is the voice of the Trumpeter. These swans do call out quite loudly when they are alarmed or when they greet incoming swans, or fly over the farm. But they talk to each other quietly out on the lake as well. The honk is so subtle that it seems one shouldn't be able to hear it. Except that its purity rings through the air like the clearest chime of a bell.
The whispers of swans to each other can't fully be described. I scarcely believed in its reality the first time I heard it. All I have been able to liken it to in my own mind is the sound attributed to angles' trumpets in the Bible...heard from the distance of heaven.

No comments: