Monday, February the 20th, 2006

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Saving Your Swan

As the deadly bird flu virus sweeps inexorably westward—France is the latest country to report a case—it is vitally important that you take preventative measures to ensure your pet swan, or swans, do not fall victim to the virus. If you act in time, your swan will not have to be culled by a wellington-booted government official armed with a gun or some poison pellets.

The simplest way to save the life of your swan is to lure it indoors and keep it there. If you do so, the virus can lay waste all outdoor bird life for as far as you can see, but your indoor swan will be snug and secure, so long as you batten down the hatches and allow no other birds into your house. There will be no point keeping your swan indoors if you then invite in any passing eagle, chaffinch, vulture, starling or peewit.

I am assuming for the purposes of this advisory note that you have only one swan. If you have two or more pet swans, you will find the technique outlined here equally effective.

Swans are independent-minded birds, and no matter how devoted a swan-keeper you are, they will always prefer to glide up and down the river or lake looking graceful and showing off their beautiful profiles than to be housebound and cloistered. You might think it is a simple matter of plucking your swan from the water, tucking it under your arm, carrying it indoors, and putting it on the sofa. Do try to remember, however, that swans can be very aggressive. Next time you are with your swan, look at its face, very close to, and tell me if you do not see a cold, hard, alien savagery.

You are probably thinking that luring your swan indoors is a simple matter of laying a trail of breadcrumbs and millet, or other seeds, from the edge of the lake across the muddy field and in through your front door to the living room. Not so. Most swans, however famished, will baulk at entering a building. They will peck eagerly away until they get to the door, but are then almost certain to turn around and return to the lake, chancing that more food will appear before long—and it will, you can be sure of that.

Can a swan be lured indoors by placing a decoy swan in your living room? This is possible, but your decoy must be thoroughly convincing. It not only needs to look like a swan, and sound like a swan, but ideally it should smell like a swan too. You are not going to succeed by bundling up some old net curtains, blackening a portion with charcoal to resemble the head, and covering it in weeds dragged from the lake. Your swan will take one cold, pitiless look at it, turn around, and waddle back to the lake, possibly lunging to bite your hand as it leaves.

What you need to do, if you are to have an indoor swan safe from bird flu, is to make your living room a more attractive environment for it than its usual lake, pond, or river habitat. This is where a bank of loudspeakers and a tape loop of music by ‘Sir’ Peter Maxwell Davies comes in. The Master of the Queen's Music is well-known for his swan-eating habits*, and no sane swan wants to be boiled and gobbled down for dinner, whether by an important contemporary composer or by a tone-deaf ingrate like you. Swans have a collective unconscious that baffles ornithologists, and ever since Maxwell Davies found an electrocuted whooper swan and took it back to his kitchen, his music strikes terror into their palpitating swan-hearts. The non-stop racket of, for example, The Yellow Cake Revue (1980), played at top volume in the vicinity of the pond, will soon have your swan seeking shelter. By angling the loudspeakers correctly, you can make your living room the haven the poor panic-stricken swan yearns for.

You will of course need to keep the music piping across the pond until such time as the government announces an all-clear, but that is the least of your worries. The important thing is that your swan will be safe.

*NOTE : See Swan News, May 2005, or this newspaper report.