Flock of Seagulls?

Friday, 02 April 2010 19:13

Today was a travel day for us, as we headed southbound to Fargo, North Dakota in advance of this weekend's MinnKota cat show; a two-day "spectacle" during which both Jan and Arianna will be participating as exhibitors.

For the most part the travel was pretty normal.  Normal that is, except for all the bloody water.  The red River has risen to levels, which although lower than last year's record flood, are still sufficiently high to require that many towns and homes are still required to close off their dikes and sandbag their homes.

Even the water levels was pretty, well, ho-hum.  We've seen this before and we'll invariably see this again.

As much as i don't really want to see families struggle with the rising waters each year, there is one site, that I've seen (now twice) during the high-water season that makes up our Manitoba annual flooding.

As we were travelling southward on the I-29 (after waiting 65 minutes inline at the Pembina Border Crossing), against the incredible dull gray skies that beckoned coming rains, I saw a small flock of birds, a flock of roughly 15-20 individuals.  Having seen a number of seagulls squawking around the waters, I had initially assumed these to be seagulls.  But then I thought to myself that I have never before seen seagulls flying in flocks.  I looked more closely, and realized that these birds had the whitest feathers that I had ever seen.

As we drove closer I quickly realized that these birds, were most definitely not seagulls.  Heck, they had long necks.

Pure white birds.  Long Necks.  Small black marking near the head.

Holy Crap!  These were swans.

A Soaring Score of Swans!

Ok...so the aliteration is a bit much.  But I must say that I've never seen anything as beautiful as a flock of swans.