23 November 2025

Just as the weather was turning foggy last week, Jim McCollum photographed an immature tundra swan at Duck Hollow. His photo, above, inspired me to go look for it but by the time I got there the swan was so far away it was a white dot in my scope. The dot might have been floating garbage except that it had a neck and it swam upstream.

Despite that disappointment Charity Kheshgi and I went to Duck Hollow yesterday morning and peered through the continuing mist.

The swan was there! About half as far away as before, so we waited for it to come closer.

When the swan crossed the river, a tugboat appeared upstream heading in the bird’s direction. Rather than wait at the shore the bird swam downstream — toward us! — periodically looking back at the tugboat to gauge its progress. Only one of my many digiscope attempts succeeded, below. The bird was swimming so hard that it had a wake at its prow.

Charity photographed it looking our way.

Lest you think the entire week was foggy, I happened to capture a moment of sun. A blue house, a blue sky, and a bare ginkgo on Yew Street.