SO in Britain all the swans may belong to the Queen, but lemme tell you about Hamburg:
Hamburg is built around a river, so there’s many many many canals (the 2400+ bridges put Venice and Amsterdam to shame), as well as a fairly sizeable lake (here the smaller section, innit precious):
This means a shittonne of swans
(stay away from the swans) (seriously don’t go sailing on the lake because they WILL chase you). Obvs swans aren’t made for cold weather (p sure they’re all Australian immigrants actually) so Hamburg has an official job position to take care of the issue.
This dude’s name is Olaf Nieß (trying to spell his name on non-German keyboards must be fun):
This guy’s job title is “Schwanenvater”, aka “swan father”, and his job literally consists of getting swans to safety before the winter chill sets in. How does he do this, you wonder? Easy: he goes up to EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SWAN in the city and sticks them in barges. I’m serious:
Look at this dude and his swans
Swans are like Satan’s personal pet and he paddles around with barges full of them like it’s nbd.
I fucking love this guy he’s braver than all of us and deserves some recognition for his absurd line of work.
I always learn new thing about my city….. this job must be tough!
This sounds like something for @elodieunderglass and her series of important birb facts.
Aaaah oh my goodness! THIS IS SO UP MY ALLEY, HOLY COW.
I was a little confused because mute swans (pictured)* are native to Northern Europe and are generally happy with cold weather (they’re quite significant in the folklore of, say, Northern Russia). In fact,my friend Dru posted a lovely video of some of my Swan Friends breaking ice here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDXURNuDNk
The cob, or daddy swan, is breaking the ice with his chest to make clear water for his family to feed in. Later the ducks (shown standing on the ice) will hop into the cleared water and enjoy the free foraging.
But then I remembered that wild Mute Swans tend to fuck off from the big rivers when it gets really cold and go somewhere warmer (such as a nice shallow pond) cos swans ain’t fools and they don’t actually like icebreaking. So why wouldn’t they want the swans in Hamburg to fuck off from the big rivers? Why are they putting them into small warm ponds for winter? Wouldn’t the swans just… do that themselves if they got cold enough?? Why do you need to have a guy go out and grab them before they do anything? THIS IS IMPLYING THAT THESE ARE NOT WILD SWANS, BUT MUNICIPAL SWANS.
AND APPARENTLY, I researched this 5 minutes ago, APPARENTLY there is a prophecy about these swans that is similar to the prophecy of the Ravens of the Tower of London : “As long as the proud swans draw circles on the Alster, Hamburg will be a free and prosperous Hanseatic City.” The swans also served the practical purpose of demonstrating that Hamburg was a free and independent city, because previously, only royal Europeans had swans.
So they are not exactly wild swans! The Swanfather cares for the swans year-round - they’re municipal animals - and in the winter he brings the swans to a place where they can “draw circles on the Alster” without fucking off entirely, and show off to everyone that Hamburg is a strong independent city that don’t need no king.
SO the Ravenmaster of London is a position that exists because if the ravens leave the tower, a prophecy says that England will fall. And the Swanfather of Hamburg exists because if the swans leave the Alster, Hamburg will stop prospering. The Swanfather role has existed since 1674, about the same time as when the Ravenmaster job was set up. I guess there was a lucrative trade in bird-related political prophecies at the time. CLEARLY I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING???
* OP is confused - the swans that are immigrants from Australia are Black Swans, and the swans on the river in Hamburg are Mute Swans.
Also, ALSO, I need to insert my standard disclaimer here: SWANS ARE NOT EVIL. THEY ARE NOT ASSHOLES. THEY ARE LARGE ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN CLOSE CONTACT WITH HUMANS BUT ARE NOT SUBMISSIVE TOWARDS HUMANS.
A huge amount of people’s fear/anxiety/outrage about swans and geese is because these large wild animals have the AUDACITY to live near humans, and to interact with humans, but not in a fearful and submissive way. Swans aren’t afraid of humans - why should they be? - and that makes us escalate our own behavior, because we expect animals to be either loving or afraid. So we often do silly things to swans, such as poking our hands at them, provoking them, threatening their young, using incredibly aggressive body language when we see them, approaching them with kayaks (kayaks are Incredibly Rude for swans) and allowing our companion animals to behave threateningly towards them while we giggle.
Then the swan indicates (fairly politely) that we are being rude and need to give them more space… and we complain that swans are disrespectful, mean and scary. Most of swan politeness is about giving them space, not making direct eye contact, and not pointing at them, or flailing your hands around, or waving a paddle at them, or looking directly at their babies, or letting a dog approach them. BUT PEOPLE ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING THAT, so they complain that swans are Satan.
In reality, they are just large wild animals that are often quite happy to be “nice” to humans, and will recognize ones that are trustworthy.
Look how nicely they’re sitting in their little boats to go to their winter pond.
I like to imagine that, like Pokemon Gym Leaders, each country has its own Monarch of the Swans.
One day they shall all do battle...
