Ok. So, here in the Mitten, we have our fair share of wildlife encounters. Yes, even in the biggest of our cities, there are animals of all sorts, and meetings with them that sometimes surprise me. For instance, just last semester, on a drive into Detroit, I had to brake and yield to a dog who was trotting along in my lane.
Yep.
Now, I grew up in "the country," in that we moved into an old farmhouse with lots of acreage when I was five. I know what it's like to chase groundhogs away from the mulberry tree and wait quietly to take that photo of the red fox who's made a den under the shed. Which is why I should've been more prepared, maybe, for what the hubs and encountered Tuesday evening.
On our first long-ish walk of the season, the spring air was warm, but windy. As we turned from the park boardwalk onto the sidewalk along the main road, we heard a loud *thump*. Jake suddenly yelled, "oh my God!" When I followed his gaze, I saw a large, dazed swan tottering in the road, and a red SUV driving away.
We stood there, stunned. The swan was stunned, too. He (or She) was just sitting there, head sort of wobbling, looking woozy. Jake ran to the fire department to see if he could get some help. I stood, like a crazy person, in the road, waving at cars and holding my hand up like I was a police officer:
"Halt!
Caution!
Injured swan here!
Make way!"
A white van pulled off the road and a tiny woman jumped out and started clapping at the swan, trying to shoo it out of the road. "Don't worry!" she cried, "I work at a nature center!"
Not knowing what else to do, I followed her example, trying to move the swan toward the safety of the park, out of the road. He got up shakily, but definitely did NOT want to encounter us--clapping and waving our arms and yelling like the crazy people we probably were--he limped out of the road. Not without a couple of zags toward the street. I just shouted, "whoa! whoa!" and spread my arms out like some sort of insane, featherless bird.
The woman procured a towel from her van, which her dad happened to be driving. He pulled the van up and we held the swan still as she wrapped him in a towel. He was bleeding onto the ground.
"I'll take him to the nature center," the woman said, as she swaddled the giant bird in the towel and I tried to firmly, but gently, hold his "shoulders" steady. Her dad leapt out of the van to open the back, and all I can remember is a flash of black-and-yellow Batman pajama pants, and how soft the swan's feathers were between my fingers. "Thank you for helping!" the woman kept repeating to me. Of course, I said, we saw it happen...we couldn't just leave him.
The woman and her dad loaded the swan into the back of the van. She sat comfortingly beside the bird who was almost as big as she was. A flash of Batman pajama pants, a couple of door slams, and the white van pulled away.
I walked back toward the fire department, where Jake was still waiting to speak to someone. He was relieved that the swan would be ok. I just held my hands out in front of me; I needed to wash them. I could still feel the soft feathers and the vital, squirming beast they had touched.
A beast I have secretly chosen to call "Harold."
All week long, I've wondered how Harold has fared. Hopefully his injuries were superficial enough. Hopefully he has made it back to his family, who have probably been waiting for him to come home.
images sourced here
