Thursday, July 31, 2008

Austrian Swan Defending his Turf

Anna (Val's sister) took this gorgeous picture of a swan, elegantly swimming around Plansee, Austria. We were enjoying the evening on the lake shore, when Vinson and I had a close encounter with this very swan. He had this part of the lake to himself and apparently felt a little threatened by our wading in "his" lake.

When the middle picture (from the sequence of three) was taken, the swan was making a growling sound like a dog does to defend his food. I had no idea that swans had a tendency to be aggressive towards humans or that they could make growling noises like that. I still can't speak for swans generally, but this particular swan on this particular evening gave a cool show.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard swans can be quite mean, and my own experience says the same for geese. I'll stick with hummingbirds, thank you!

Dwight and Ashley Family said...

So I decided to dig around on my wife's blogging and I stumble accross Dan Reeves. Good to see everything is going well for you and your family. Take Care.

Dwight

Heidi said...

Those are incredible pictures!! Simply beautiful!!

Haley said...

I was blog hopping and found your blog. What an adventure to live in Prague. I think my life is crazy enough in Lehi!!! Great to "see" you.

Matthew said...

My sister was bit by a swan in either Austria or Switzerland (I don't remember which). We all thought that it was pretty funny, but those things can be really mean.