When Swans Attack

Here is a story of how a day can take strange twists and turns. Also, it is a lesson of what not to do. The place that we normally go to ski had received about 4 inches of new snow over the past 3 days, but we did not feel like skiing today. So, we chose to go explore a new place around Boise. Just south of Boise is a place called the Snake River Birds of Prey conservation area. Like the name says, this is an area along the Snake River where there are normally birds like bald and golden eagles, different types of falcons, hawks and osprey. The area is very dry except for what is right by the river. The day was sunny and in the high 40s. I don't think it would be a good place to come in the middle of summer. There is not much cover.

The first place we stopped was a little overlook trail on the rim of the Snake River canyon. We walked about a 1/3 of a mile out to this really great overlook. They say you can see the birds from this point, but the signs told us that February is not a good time of the year for that. Late spring is the best time.
Now for the tale of danger. After the overlook, we drove down into the canyon to the Swan Falls dam. First, we saw no falls down here, although we did find a swan. Let's call him Cujo. When we got out of the car we saw a family go up to Cujo and Cujo was just looking for handouts of food. This family consisted of two adults and a girl of about 5 to 7 years old. Cujo did really didn't do anything when he found out that no food was coming. We "thought" that we could get a nice picture for a blog of Cujo coming up to me looking for food. How nice and cute that would be. AHHH. Here is picture # 1:
Here is picture # 2. When I got closer Cujo bit me and would not let go of my jeans. I ran about 20 feet before I could shake him loose.
The only bad part was Julie was not running the video function of the camera. Then you could here Cujo's anger. There are three lessons here. First, always be the first person to approach a hungry swan when you have no food for him. Second, swans do know the rule "Fool me once shame on me. Fool me twice shame on you." And, they take it very personally. Third, always have the camera on video mode when approaching what seems to be a harmless tame animal.

Stix