Monday, April 27, 2020

The great swans of Stratford

Feeling reflective
Stratford, ON
April 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram
Swans exist because we all need the occasional reminder that beauty takes many forms.

At first glance, they've got it all. Long, graceful necks. Pristine white feathers. Brilliant orange-on-black beaks that would look at home on the nose of an experimental fighter jet. They move through the water with ease and grace, the perfect alpha bird to all others. It's no wonder Stratford celebrates them as icons of the city.

Yet as I stand in the shadows of the city's shuttered theatres and watch the swans glide across the water, they're hardly alone. They share the space with quacking ducks, bickering gulls, and seemingly fearless robins and crows and a whole bunch of other birds I can't recognize.

All of them are captivating in their own way. All of them pull me in as I stand transfixed by the ever changing action playing out on and above the water.

The other birds may not have lovely long necks or fighter jet-esque color schemes, yet they don't seem to mind the seeming deficit one bit. They are, in a word, content. They've been given what they've been given, and this is the life they now lead.

Probably not a bad analog for humans, too.

#stratford #ontario #canada #landscape #travel #lake #victoria #avon #river #bird #birds #swan #nature #photography #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded #lifeinthemargins #family #everything

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