3.5 out of 5 stars
The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.
What comes to mind for you when you see a swan? For me, there are several things. Firstly, they are sparklingly white, secondly they seem to glide effortlessly through the water, hardly making a ripple and thirdly they are absolutely bloody enormous!
Whilst I am always pleased to see a swan glide past on the River Stour near me, I am not as obsessed as Dan Keel is with this magnificent bird. They have enthralled and captivated him since boyhood and he has spent hours studying them to write about and more recently take photos of them.
This book is a finely crafted mix of his observations and encounters with the folklore, myths, art and culture of them. The chapter titles include The Aviator, The Lover and The Fighter. He expands on these subjects by keeping a diary of a swan nesting near him, describing how these birds fly and how they defend themselves in the wild.
I thought that this was really well done. If you are remotely interested in all of the wildlife that inhabits our ponds and rivers then the swan should be counted equally with birds like of the kingfisher. Keel has a passion for these huge birds and this is very evident in each chapter. There were lots of facts about swans that I was completely unaware of and he even busts some of the myths about them too. (They can’t break your arm!). I thought this was definitely worth reading.
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