Swansation!

Swans....Big feathered long neck floating icons. Who hasn't taken a photo of them? My encounters with swans really started when I first began mooring my boat in Smiths Cove. That's when I realized they love to look for handouts.I guess with three on the water eateries,the Studio,Rudder and the Mad Fish Grille these swans have been fed well by the paying customers.Trained if you will by the sight of any well fed human being. One day back around 2003 I was able to get one of those magic "shots" of a swan purely by accident. After a day on the water with my wife and nieces and nephews, my boat looked like a cyclone hit it! You know,garbage all over,life jackets strewn about...things like that. And as every time on the water goes with the gang, poor Jay is left alone on the boat to clean up.Well this time it was a long day and all I wanted to do was go home,so cleaning was at the minimal. Throw the life jackets in the cabin,zip up the canvas,quick rinse with fresh water and head home.I can tidy up further the next morning.....and that's what I did. So the next morning I head below into the cabin and store the life jackets properly. But all over the cabin someone had spilled a whole box of Pepperidge Farms pizza flavored Goldfish! What a mess! Most intact and some crushed! Here I am on my hands & knees grabbing handfulls and tossing them out thru the cabin door. I figured I could use the broom on the deck once they where out there. While I was doing this I hear a strange sound,like someone wearing a large ring rapping against the side of the boat. I peek out towards the stern and out of the corner of my eye I see the head of a swan bobbing in and out of view! The dang bird is trying to jump in the boat was my thought! Then I see it....One of the pizza flavored Goldfish landed on the gunwhale.(top edge of the boat's side) He's trying to get it,I grab my camera and slither like a snake along the deck and wait.At first I was too low,all I could see was the top of his head. Slowly with camera raised to my eye I lift myself to the top edge. We meet eye to beek and I snap! And that's how I captured the swan eating a pizza flavored Goldfish!