When Swans Attack - Lucerne, Switzerland

Surrounded by the crystal clear waters of Lake Luzerne, I was about to meet my demise at the beak of a swan. Or at least part with my foot.  

My desire to see the small, sleepy town from the photos of my parents’ 1980 trip brought us to what turned out to bustling Lucerne as a day trip from Zurich. Technologically resourceful travel companion, E, found an app full of walking tours which guided us to all the major sites of interest. We had seen it all in a short amount of it: bridge with flowers, fancy shopping area, large wall with great view of the Alps, dead lion monument, massive church…we covered our bases. Finally, we ended up at the edge of the lake with the town behind us and the mountains and water ahead. When E suggested we take a paddle boat out into the sparkling Lake, I jumped at the idea. A beautiful snow melt-fed lake, surrounded by mountains and the town we were just exploring by foot, littered by flocks of swans. What could possibly go wrong? 

We rented a blue plastic boat and paddled out as far as we could go into the middle of the lake. It was a bright, sunny day and the light caused the surface of the clear blue-green water to sparkle with every ripple. In the distance the Alps stood tall. Suddenly, E looked beyond herself with excitement and pointed gleefully in my direction. 

“Why are you pointing at me?”

“Look! Look!”

I looked. A swan had appeared by my foot; it seemed to be sniffing it. 

“It thinks you have food,” E said.

“It’s about to peck at me. Paddle faster!”

“No, it’s cute. Why is it going to you and not coming to me?”

“I don’t care, lets get away from it! It’s going to eat my foot!”

“It’s just hungry and wants food. It won’t hurt you.”

I tried to convince myself that E’s logic was right. Perhaps the pungent cheesy smell of the fondue had permeated the blue canvas of my shoes and the swan was drawn to the smell of the cheese. Perhaps it wanted to talk about what tastes better with the cheese, the potatoes or the bread. Then I remembered my previous and first ever encounter with a swan on the distant shores of Lake Ronkonkoma in New York. The images flashed through my mind: a bird nearly my height hissed and raced towards me in attack mode, I hobbled away from it as fast as my sprained and swollen ankle would allow me to move on pebbles, the shame as others watched the spectacle. At that point, I reverted to my original idea that the swan wanted to kill me.  

“IT THINKS MY FOOT IS FOOD!”

Swan and I looked each other in the eye before the dance began. I moved my foot closer to the center of the boat. It extended its beak inwards. We steered right. It came with us, closely following. We paddled ahead and steered left. It followed. There was no shaking it off. A boat full of men, for lack of a better word, resembling the cast of Jersey Shore passed by in a boat and threw a can of beer towards a flock of swans which immediately dispersed. I needed to throw something at it! 

What could I possibly throw? The contents of my bag were very scant: iPhone which I carried at the insistence of E, wallet, passport. None of these were items I wanted to watch fall to the bottom of the lake. Also, as an environmentalist, I wouldn’t want to throw anything into these pristine waters. And perhaps most of all, I didn’t want to put myself into the same boat, no pun intended, as those guido-looking imbeciles with no respect for animals. 

Out of sheer desperation, I decided to talk to it, in German. My German being limited to two years of highschool study and phrases picked up from watching numerous World War II films, I like the American tourist I was tried to avoid being. Then again, I was on a paddle boat. Who was I kidding?

“Halt!,” I yelled hoping it would stop its advance. “Snell,” I shouted while pointing at another swan hoping it would understand that I thought it should quickly join its friend before he or she got lonely. When none of that worked, I said, “Sie gehen weg. Bitte.” 

That seemed to do the trick. It went away. So all I needed to say was please? We watched it join its fellow swan friends. 

“Why did it only go to you?” E asked, her tone badly masked disappointment at not also being attacked by a swan.

“Who knows. It’s gone now. Lets look at the mountains.”

While we did stare at the mountains, we still looked around at the flocks of swans and watched them dip their long necks into the waters looking for food. We tried to pick out the one that was following us before, but they all looked too similar. The momentarily converging paths between human and bird had diverged once again, probably (hopefully) never to meet in this lifetime. 

It has been a few months from that encounter, and to this day I believe I could’ve lost a foot and E sticks to her idea that I’m insane.