Always The Quiet One

I don’t know how you tell the gender of cygnets (you probably can’t by the naked eye, purely as an on land observer), but today mum was down by the creek with one of her babies and dad was away with the other – out patrolling their territory no doubt. I don’t think I’ve witnessed that before and I wondered if it was a dad and son bonding thing going on.

The other thing I observed was one of the cygnets carried one of its legs tucked up by its side and was thus lopsided, moving in a slightly comical fashion as it was more spinning than moving forward in a straight line. I don’t think it’s injured, I think swans naturally do that sometimes.

I’ll look out for it again, the next time I see them.

The cygnets aren’t really babies anymore. They are beginning to lose their baby fuzz and develop feathers. They’ve grown quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. They’ve passed the most dangerous part of their early lives and they have survived.

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I was thinking about quiet and loud today as I sat watching the family of four foraging for food in the water next to where I was sitting. It was seven a.m. on a Sunday morning, so it was quiet. Very few people around. Swans are considered quiet creatures – the name for their specific breed is mute swan – but they make a lot of different noises if you get up close and get the chance to study them in depth. Cygnets have a high pitched cheeping sound which can convey a range of emotions from contented to hungry to scared or tired out. Adults will hiss when confronted by other creatures (e.g. dogs), but they make a range of other very low level noises to call to each other.

Quiet and loud was the call sign of the grunge movement. It was the trademark of Nirvana, those quiet verses that would suddenly explode into a wall of noise that heralded the big chorus. It became a cliché over time, adopted by so many bands that it just felt like a formula.

Some of the loudest bands I saw live were not necessarily the ones you might expect. Top of that list I might put Cinerama, who were a more pop spin off from indie perennials The Wedding Present. Early Cinerama records had added string instruments, female vocals and 60s pop stylings. As the band progressed they slowly brought back the noise, while retaining that wider sound palette. I saw them at The Fleece and Firkin in Bristol. Towards the end of their career.

They were very loud. Maybe it was partly the venue, relatively small and intimate, but it was more than that. I also saw the improbably named ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead at the same venue and they were also spectacularly loud – but that was much more in keeping with their music. Other than that I can’t really think of other gigs where the noise levels were that intimidating.

I’ve a taste for noise, for energy and feedback and everything turned up to eleven, but at the same time I’ve never wanted to go to a gig to actually feel uncomfortable because of the noise. I also love quiet, intimate. (Although in the modern age, that’s bound to be ruined by people talking during the gig, which makes me angry. But hey I’m a recluse now so concert etiquette is not the issue for me.)

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In the summer swans will moult. This is an annual event. Over a period of six weeks each adult swan will slowly shed all of its feathers and replace them with new ones. This is imperative to their survival. Feathers wear out. They wear out through use in flight and through use in conflict, when the birds will fluff up their feathers to signal aggression and to ward off attackers.

During the moult a swan is rendered flightless. They moult in summer as food is plentiful and they don’t need to travel long distances to sustain themselves. Currently there are six swans in the river that are going through this process. That means you see them every day hanging out within a very small area. Their lives appear quite dull. They can’t go anywhere. All they can do is bob around on the water or paddle about through the mud at low tide.

These six are adolescents, not yet fully adult and paired off. They may well be six of last years eight surviving cygnets, though there’s no clear way to tell. Five always hang out together and the sixth seems to spend most of the time on their own.

A single swan in nature is an unnatural occurrence. There’s something sad about seeing this singular figure pottering about on its own. But I can relate.

It’s always the quiet one.

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For our family of four, the female will moult first. The dad retains an ability to fly so that it can protect the family. Soon though the mother will be fully mobile again and then it will be dad’s turn to moult. For those weeks the mother takes on the protective duties and will have to go out and patrol their territory.

Nature makes these creatures (and all its creatures) smart. The adolescents all moult together, strength in numbers and with no responsibilities of young to look after. The parents stagger the process for simple reasoning of protecting their young.

Cygnets moult in the autumn. A sort of mini process of what will occur for them every summer once they grow up. In this mini moult they lose most of their brown, grey colouring and finally begin to look like the fully white adult swans they will one day become.

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Cath christened me a quiet corner guy. I guess it was her version of wallflower. But I’m beyond that now. It’s no longer like that song – 'You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties' – it’s something else. I’m not in the kitchen. I’m not at the party. I didn’t get the invite. And if I’d got the invite, I wouldn’t have gone.

Always the quiet one.