Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 19:36:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Shouri Chatterjee <tuku@cisl.columbia.edu>
Subject: swan

Hope you are all fine.

Today I had gone to Central Park. It was nice, sunny and pleasant at
first. I was wandering around for quite some time - and had my packed
lunch with the ducks. After quite some time it became cloudy, chilly and
very windy. When finally the drops started to fall, I got up and started
to leave. It was a false alarm - there was no rain at all - in fact the
only drops that fell seem to have fallen on me...

While I was coming back I saw this swan. It was a huge huge swan - I am
now sure I had never seen a swan before. (I was always under the
impression that I had seen swans several times...) There was this family -
with three dogs. One of them was thirsty and wanted a drink from the lake.
As soon as it reached the edge of the water, the swan got terribly
annoyed, frowned at it and came darting in the direction of the dog. The
dog was visibly frightened and started barking madly at the dog. The other
two dogs were so afraid that they were hiding their faces in the lap of
their owner! The thirsty dog didn't want to give up, though. It felt
offended - and barked even more at the swan. It was a comic scene. The
swan was squatting right at the edge of the water - as if it was defending
it's territory. Whenever the dog was making a step towards the water, the
swan was coming towards it.The swan moving a couple of inches forward
would send the dog back by ten steps. :) When finally the dog mustered
enough courage to go very close to the swan, barking its way through, the
unperturbed swan gave it a nasty growl - and the dog literally went
yelping back! After this the annoyed swan thought that it was okay to let
the dog have a drink, and retreated a foot or so. The dog, still
courageous, went forward, quickly had a few laps of the water and ran back
to it's mistress. The swan, still annoyed, gave the dog a glare - made
sure that its territory was intact, and swam slowly back towards the
center of the lake. As soon as the barking subsided, the other jubillant
dogs showed their faces and cheered for the thirsty dog! :))

Lots of love,
Tuku