Wild Beasts

I had an energizing speed walk at Down's Park today, just short of an hour. I went there with my mother, but we walked separately, at our own pace. Down's, off course, is on the Chesapeake Bay, and the number and variety of sea birds found there is always impressive, but today was extraordinary. An astounding thousand or more scaup and other wild diving ducks (which I couldn't definitively ID without binoculars, as they were at a distance from the shore) dotted the vast blue expanse. I finished the walk, my eyes relishing the majesty of the sparkling blue water with every step. It was a perfect walk--almost.
I was doing my cool down (three to five minutes, per 55 minute walk) when I heard someone screaming as if being murdered. Off to one side of the walking path, and adjacent to the Bay lies a small, sheltered pond with an observation deck. It seems a perfect refuge for waterfowl from the ravages of the ocean, particularly on days when the Chesapeake is rough. A pair of beautiful wild swans have taken up residence there; on my last visit, I observed what I believed to be a nest on the far side of the pond (fortuitously unapproachable from the observation deck).

The swans were there today. To my horror, they were being assailed by three little white girls who stood on the deck screaming at the top of their lungs, as one might at a charging grizzly bear. Their father (or whoever the in-duh-vidual was) was sitting placidly on a bench a couple feet away, watching.

"Where in hell is the park ranger, when you need one?" I thought.

I walked onto the deck and stood a few feet away from the girls, who briefly rested their lungs. They screamed again, though not as vociferously, perhaps due to my presence. Again, not a peep from the father-adult.

Since I'm not a parent, I try very hard to keep out of other peoples' child discipline issues, but this desecration of nature (noise pollution) put me on the warpath. I looked the girls in the eye and then over at their father and said sternly, "I'm a biologist, and I really wouldn't recommend screaming in such a manner around here. It's up to you, but it stresses the animals, and is not very good for them." They looked rather stunned, as though the idea was totally alien to them. I walked away slowly, and sat on some nearby rocks watching the diving ducks. Miraculously, the screaming had stopped. I wondered if these children thought it okay to carry on in similar fashion in a kindergarden class, or in their family home, let alone in the perfect tranquility of a park---clearly a sanctuary for wildlife.

Tomorrow, I think I'll get a dog.:-)