A mute swan typically has only one mate in its lifetime ... They valued swans for the elegance the birds added to parks, ...

a hunter in America shot a flying swan and the bird careered into him. His arm broke in the collision. We’ve always seen the best of ourselves in the swan. Aristotle even suggested that swans ...

Still, there is the reassuring uplift of fairy tales like Hans Christian Andersen's duckling turned swan, with its metamorphosis from plain to princely. Bittersweet, these beautiful birds.