Tundra swans are not your usual kind of Swan. You rarely find then gracing a pond in city park. These are truly wild swans and they come and go from wild places where human don’t often go. They are not especially rare or even uncommon as they are seen often during their migration times. But when you first see one in the pale winter light of a December morning, emerging from the water to stand quietly and let the soft light fall on its body, they seem like the rarest of the rare. A jewel the likes of which could overshadow the most beautiful pearl with their soft luster.

Swans have a natural grace that is apparent whenever you see one but wild swans have an aura about them that their nearly domesticated sisters who reside in our ponds lack. Even when standing in repose like this one, there is a sense of majesty about them. A regal-ness, if you will, that comes from being free and living their lives as nature intended, with no clipped wings to keep them prisoner, or tricked into staying bound to us by being fed foods they can’t always find in the wild. These are the birds that when they fly over us calling to each other, their bills pointing straight into the wind, their wings beating with a strong steady rhythm and you’re sure they are going someplace wondrous, that makes one say “Take me with you. Take me along.”

Try as we might we cannot accompany them. We have to settle for the special moments when we encounter them and they approach out of the blue. We can send our thoughts with them for a safe journey and hopes for a good life and we can let our hearts say “Take me along. Take me with you.” but we are bound here. That’s the difference between us and the wild things. We may take trips and visit exotic places but we will never be truly wild. That is left to beings like the Tundra swan and others that can take flight and go where they wish. One is happy for them, but there is still that thought, how marvelous it would be if we could go too.