Altercation in East Hampton: Swan Drama

I observed a serious domestic dispute this morning just across the street from our house. The police might have come but they didn’t. East Hampton Marine Patrol might have come but they didn’t.

There’s lots that goes on just across the street. Our house is on a hillside and gives us a great view of an inlet on Three Mile Harbor. Boats are tied up in slips here. Motorists park along the side of the road and bring things onto or off the boats. Others, just out for a walk, enjoy a newly rebuilt boardwalk that runs the length of the inlet. There’s always something going on.

What happened this morning was totally unexpected.

First of all, there were the boats coming in and out. Sailboats, fishing boats, pleasure craft. To avoid one another, they must go very slowly. Speed limit is 5 miles an hour. No exceptions.

Sometimes, at the far end of the inlet, we see a group of paddleboarders heading north toward the open harbor through a gap in the wetlands. They go out in a line — the leader a woman who teaches paddleboarding and calls herself the Paddle Diva, followed by a line of other paddleboarders learning how. Her students. One to a paddleboard. But on the Paddle Diva’s board, sitting behind her, is a black dog.

The dispute does not involve the paddleboarders, who soon leave. It involves who is coming the other way, into the inlet. It’s a family of mute swans.

Leading the way is a grand white swan. Directly behind, in a straight row as precise as the paddleboarders’ row, are six smaller grey swans. Cygnets. And in the rear is another grand white swan. They are on parade.

At this moment, there is just one yacht moving in the inlet. It’s a 35-footer, just backed out of its slip. Its motor hums. It turns around and begins to head out. But now the captain sees the swans and slows to 3 knots to give them a wide berth. He’s never before seen swans coming in here. And we’ve never seen that either.

A few minutes later, the captain has jockeyed the yacht out through the wetlands opening and is gone. The lead swan, meanwhile, has turned 90 degrees to port and in doing so has led his flock down to the sterns of the boats in the slips. Seeing that, he orders a 90-degree turn to starboard to paddle along the backs of them, giving us a good across-the-street view. Coming to the far end of the slips, he turns his flock around and now parades back the other way.

At this moment, I see what at first appears to me to be a giant feathered boulder, something twice the size of a swan, swimming along toward us from the far end of the inlet at great speed, well over the limit. It is not clear where this came from. As it comes closer, it becomes clear it is not a boulder but another white swan puffed up in a way to be this giant, now paddling quickly toward the little eight-swan family.

The swans swim slowly, but when the lead swan sees what’s headed toward them, he swings west to lead them a little faster along the side of the wetlands heading toward the opening. But he’s not going to make it. The puffed-up swan will get to them first. And so, somehow, I don’t know how, he gets those behind him to turn away and disappear into the foliage of the wetlands and wait. He will speed up and meet this intruder halfway. It will be front and center, right in the middle of the inlet. There is about to be a battle.

My wife and I, sitting on our deck, whisper low. These are two males, we agree. It’s always the men. They will be fighting over the family. Winner take all. It’s either the leader’s family or the intruder’s family. One fathered the little ones. One has been wronged. But who?

The two males meet in the middle and the intruder makes the move. He spreads his snowy wings as far out as they can go — six feet — sees the women and children head into the wetlands to hide and so rises up off the water eight feet and attacks, stretching his neck out as a spear. The leader does the same. And they collide. There is a lot of splashing, hitting, shoving and pushing. But no sound. They’re mute. It stops. Then it happens again. And again. And still again.

When the scuffling finally ends, the leader retreats to the wetlands, orders his wife and kids to come out — but he does not return with them to the center of the inlet. Instead, rather in disarray, he paddles them off away from the encounter, toward the wetlands opening into the bigger harbor.

The intruder does not follow. Instead, he fluffs himself up. Motionless, he glares at them awhile, then slowly heads back to where he came from at the far end of the inlet out of sight behind some more boats in their slips there, and then he’s gone. It’s over.

Perhaps there is some other explanation to all this. The intruder is the King of the Hill. The Inlet Mafia. It’s his inlet. And this other fellow — he was the intruder with his little gang following him. Mistake. The wrong place at the wrong time.

And so, there is a victor and a loser. And it’s about property rights. Maybe.

Later that day, we drive past Town Pond in the center of downtown East Hampton. And in the pond, paddling slowly around, are two giant white mute swans, looking at everything. Swans mate for life, it’s said. Shall they build a nest here? There’s a boy with a toy boat on the grass along the shoreline of the pond. One of the swans paddles over. Looking for something to eat? Looking to urge him off? There hasn’t been a husband and wife in the pond to raise a family in years — since the algae began taking over much of the pond, and the village authorities tried bothersome measures to get it all cleaned out.

We made the 90-degree turn to starboard and drove up Woods Lane and out of sight toward Sagaponack. And that’s that.