Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
SO in Britain all the swans may belong to the Queen, but lemme tell you about Hamburg:
Hamburg is built around a river, so there’s many many many canals (the 2400+ bridges put Venice and Amsterdam to shame), as well as a fairly sizeable lake (here the smaller section, innit precious):
This means a shittonne of swans
(stay away from the swans) (seriously don’t go sailing on the lake because they WILL chase you). Obvs swans aren’t made for cold weather (p sure they’re all Australian immigrants actually) so Hamburg has an official job position to take care of the issue.
This dude’s name is Olaf Nieß (trying to spell his name on non-German keyboards must be fun):
This guy’s job title is “Schwanenvater”, aka “swan father”, and his job literally consists of getting swans to safety before the winter chill sets in. How does he do this, you wonder? Easy: he goes up to EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SWAN in the city and sticks them in barges. I’m serious:
Look at this dude and his swans
Swans are like Satan’s personal pet and he paddles around with barges full of them like it’s nbd.
I fucking love this guy he’s braver than all of us and deserves some recognition for his absurd line of work.
The position of Schwanenvater used to be passed from father to son, but if I remember correctly, it’s quite possible that this will change once Olaf Nieß retires. It was established in 1647.
Also, Hamburg has a whole agency that deals with the swans, it’s called the Schwanenwesen (x). They do other stuff, too, like taking care of other water fowl and their habitats and any seals that may turn up in the Elbe (which they occasionally do). And they have a dog (x) that can search for any swans that are hurt and have gone into hiding.
Throwback to that time a guy suddenly started playing the violin for the swans in Hamburg, and they just “the fuck, bro?”
A swan somewhere in Switzerland - that’s SBB rolling stock in the background - trying to decide between diplomatic neutrality (Swiss attitude) and plain old aggression (Swan attitude).
And that isn’t the most aggressive swan we’ve seen recently. This one in Bregenz (Austria) had a fit of furious territoriality and chased every single other aquatic bird - ducks, coots, grebes, even seagulls - out of the boat-pool.
Look at the wake it’s kicking up as it goes after the last remaining Other Swan, having pursued it from the main pool into this little channel by the boarding-dock.
I’m sorry I didn’t get a pic of the sidelong stink-eye it gave D when she laughed as it went by, because that was a Look to raise blisters…
It finally did a running takeoff at the Other Swan - who finally took the hint and flew away in the general direction of Germany - then came back and dominated the boat-pool for the rest of the afternoon while looking quite ridiculously pleased with itself…
Seriously… the look it gave me was simply withering. I have never been so unmistakably and comprehensively told “FOAD, mammal” by a member of another species before.
(ETA: I did a little hunting around and found the original photo of the Swiss swan, which is here on Flickr. The train station is [as I kind of thought] Zurich HB / main station, in April of 2013. Zuri HB is very close to the river Aare, which is where the swan probably came in from – there are a lot of swans and other waterfowl around that part of the river. The photographer confirms that the swan was “forcibly removed” but not hurt in the process.)
