Do swans have memory?

One of the things I’m most looking forward to are the morning walks through the meadow down beside the Thames. The weeks I spent at Christ Church, for my sabbatical, started with an hour walk that became one of the summer’s highlights.

For the walk I would go down the bank of the river and then turn up a path beside a small tributary. I think the British call something like this a creek, but in Arizona where I grew up, it would have been called a river. Whatever it is called it is wide and deep enough for rowboats and the ever-popular punts.

There was a family of swans that greeted me each morning. There was the Mom and Dad along with five babies. Like the Disney movies, they swam sedately along in single file. It was both pleasing and relaxing to watch.

When I say they greeted me I was not speaking metaphorically, greeting is exactly what I meant. The first morning I saw them I said hello as I walked past and I did that each day. On about the fourth day when I said hello, Dad honked at me.

Now I know what you’re thinking. A man who speaks to swans and then thinks they answer needs a salvia test, or at least extensive counseling. But speak I did and answer he did. On each morning walk, for the rest of the time I spent in Oxford, the Swan and I exchanged greeting as I walked by.

As I walked back to the college from the river, they were always coming up the smaller river towards the Thames. A couple of different afternoons I would see what I took to be the family paddling in the big river but I’m not sure as none of them would answer my hello. In the morning it was just me, but in the afternoon there were other people around. I suppose that Dad didn’t want anyone to know he spoke to large bearded people.

I had a good time last summer many memories were made, some to cherish and some to relive. As I return I am looking forward to the walk and the chance to say hello to an old friend.