Mean Streak

This shot sums up swans for me: beautiful but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them. I took this at Petersfield Heath this morning where Son1 and I had a very pleasant hour wandering around with our cameras. Son2 and Mr DawnC, meanwhile, have headed off to Gillingham for the day to watch some football match or other.

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In other news, I've been chuckling and "well I never"ing my way through this book on my Kindle. I would highly recommend it. Talking of etymology, I've just discovered there's an online etymology dictionary and this is what it says about the word 'swan':

O.E. swan, from P.Gmc. *swanaz (cf. O.S. swan, O.N. svanr, M.Du. swane, Du. zwaan, O.H.G. swan, Ger. Schwan), probably lit. "the singing bird," from PIE base *swon-/*swen- "to sing, make sound" (see sound (n.1)); thus related to O.E. geswin "melody, song" and swinsian "to make melody." In classical mythology, sacred to Apollo and to Venus. The singing of swans before death was alluded to by Chaucer (late 14c.), but swan-song (1831) is a translation of Ger. Schwanengesang. Swan dive is recorded from 1898. A black swan was proverbial for "something extremely rare or non-existent" (late 14c.), after Juvenal ["Sat." vi. 164], but later they turned up in Australia.