A Spurious Swan
You can’t blame kids for being ignorant when you see a parent tell them “Look at that Swan.”
That’s the “Swan” in the picture above. The white bird that’s the size and shape of a duck and has a curly tail just like a drake. It walks and talks like a duck too. I’m not one to take the moral high ground on bird identification, having already proved I’m shaky on waders and not good on gulls. (And if you wait for summer I’ll parade my tragic lack of warbler skills).
However, a Swan is a basic bird, like a Pigeon, a Sparrow and a Magpie. In an ideal world such basic knowledge would be part of the Parenthood Exam and if you couldn’t ID a Swan you wouldn’t be allowed to breed.
That should also weed out people who feed pigeons even though told not to.
Who? Me?
Meanwhile, the Odd Couple seem as close as ever.
I worry about these two…