Behold the black swan floating
between images of carps and clouds
in cool pond waters reflecting.
With regal beauty and form,
the humble bow of the black swan
took my breath away. ~ms
***I took these photos on the island of Oahu—at the Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. If you are planning a trip to Hawaii, this is a beautiful place to visit.
-
COPYRIGHT
-
© Mary Strong-Spaid and Before I Forget/Stories with No Books, 2012-2024. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Mary Strong-Spaid and Before I Forget/ Stories with No Books with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. NO REBLOGGING WITHOUT PERMISSION.
-
Recent Posts
- Shifting Pronouns
- Friendly Garden Spider
- Cardinals at the Dog Water Bowl Bird Bath
- Thoughts of a Natural Born Tree-Hugger
- Rising from the Dead in Spring
- Cat Clinging to the Edge of Normal
- Christmas Lion 2020
- Monarch Butterfly Stops in San Antonio Mid-November
- Entomology Summer Camp Hands-On Experience
- Siamese Cat Shelter-in-Place Guidelines
- Covid-19 Life in a Darkening World
- Strong Civil War Connection to Fredericksburg
- The Little Eyes of Texas
- Good Friends and Auld Lang Syne
- Pulte New Home Nightmare
- Labrador Retriever Riding in Style
- Foster Kitten’s Grateful Prayer
- On the Path of Wind and Water
Blog Stats
- 84,962 hits
Top Posts & Pages
Archives
-
Join 2,252 other subscribers
Links
Before I Forget 
beautiful swan, thanks for sharing these
LikeLike
Your welcome! It’s my pleasure.
LikeLike
A gorgeous creature!
LikeLike
Thanks Montucky.
It has some lovely curves, that’s for sure. 🙂
LikeLike
Beautiful Mary. I like that ruffled butt. 😉
LikeLike
Thanks Jerry.
I like it too….
Classy style.
LikeLike
Reminds me of cancan dancer.
LikeLike
Nice pictures. Thanks for visiting my blog and liking my Swan pics.
LikeLike
Thanks. I enjoyed your photos.
There is something inherently beautiful about a swan….
LikeLike
I’ll call it Natalie!
🙂
LikeLike
An appropriate name. 😉
LikeLike
Beauty beautifully captured visually and poetically,
LikeLike
Thanks so much for the compliment, Jackie!
LikeLike
Absolutely beautiful! What a moment to capture. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
Thanks Pat! Black and white and shades of grey–it is a beautiful swan.
So glad it stopped for a photo!
LikeLike
Gorgeous portrait (second one). Like it a lotl We have a lot of white swans in our neighborhood but the black one is a special.
LikeLike
White swans in your neighborhood?
Around here we have ducks, geese, and many smaller birds.
No swans. I was on the island of Oahu when I saw this black swan.
I have never seen anything like this around here.
LikeLike
Neighborhood where I live has the name Swansea and it is true. We have a lot of this gorgeous birds around. Even at winter time they stay here. They suffer from freeze and lack of food but do not leave this place. I have few pictures of them in my blog (Grenader Pond).
LikeLike
It must be nice to live near to such a beautiful pond.
You must go there often! With their heads hidden under their wings, the cold swans in your photographs (at first glance) do look a lot like white drifts of snow sitting on a frozen lake.
LikeLike
Your poetry is magical. And the swan looks all dressed up in ruffles for a special occasion. An amazing post and sooo beautiful!
LikeLike
Thank you!
I thought the black swan looked quite elegant too….
LikeLike
Very nice! Makes you wonder why a Black Swan is usually considered an ominous portent. Afraid I missed seeing these when I visited Oahu last December, but maybe a reason for another visit…
LikeLike
I did not know the Black Swan was considered an ominous portent, so I looked it up on the internet to see if I could find out why.
Apparently it is because it is something that is different and unexpected. Here is what I found:
“……..A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. Nevertheless, people tend to concoct explanations for them after the fact, which makes them appear more predictable, and less random, than they are. Our minds are designed to retain, for efficient storage, past information that fits into a compressed narrative. This distortion, called the hindsight bias, prevents us from adequately learning from the past…..”
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb04/taleb_indexx.html
AHA!
Considering the above definition, I am a black swan. (In fact, all of the creative people, artists, writers, etc…..probably fall into the “black swan” category).
Absolutely Wonderful!!
LikeLike
The swans feathers are amazing, so wavy and sleek. I love your photos and words. You are truly lucky to have been to such beautiful place!
LikeLike
Yes I was lucky to be there!
Sometimes it is very clear that heaven happens. 😉
LikeLike
Magnificent images!
LikeLike
Thank you…the black swan is such a beautiful sight!
LikeLike
I love swans! Beautiful pictures.
LikeLike
I don’t see swans very often, and it was the first time I had ever seen a black swan in the “real” world. Graceful they are!
LikeLike
What an elegant swan. Great photographs.
LikeLike
Thanks Mary!
LikeLike
Really awesome creature of nature….keep posting like this..
LikeLike
Thanks Ramchandra!
I agree…..black swans are quite extraordinary.
LikeLike
So Beautiful Black -Swan
LikeLike
It’s true. Black swans are eloquent in their black and white feathers.
LikeLike
Magnificent!
LikeLike
The swan would blush if it could hear all the compliments!
LikeLike
Thanks for stopping by and liking Believe Your Eyes. Your photos are wonderful and I will enjoy keep up with your blog. Namaste. . . . .Anne
LikeLike
Thank you Anne.
I love the photos that you post…..of places, people, and food that I have never seen before. Living vicariously through the images, I am.
LikeLike
What a lovely comment! Thank you.. . .
Namaste. . . . .Anne
LikeLike
I love the first photo. It looks like a painting!
LikeLike
Thank you. I guess you could say that nature was painting!
LikeLike
Thanks for visiting m blog and I love your images of the black swans. Divine 🙂
LikeLike
Beautiful. I love your images and writing. And thank you for following my blog. I love yours.
LikeLike
The feeling is mutual. 😉
LikeLike
Great profile shot!
LikeLike
Thanks!
It was almost as if the swan was posing.
The picture could be used in a children’s book….as an example of the letter “S.” 😉
LikeLike
I’ve never seen those ruffled feathers before. Beautiful!
LikeLike
I didn’t know that swans had ruffled feathers in the back either.
Evening wear!!
LikeLike
Beautiful photos of the swans. I used to have a pair nest on my property years ago and prior to that there was a pair which built their nest near a town about twenty miles away from where I grew up. Dad always said you could predict how wet the winter was going to be by the height of their nest.
LikeLike
Thank you! That’s very interesting. There are no swans near my house, so I have never seen a swan nest (high or low, I wouldn’t know).
LikeLike
We had a pair of black swans nest on our property the first year…the nest I referred to was about twenty miles away in a swampy area. Hence the comment about the height of the nest.
LikeLike
Well…it would be interesting if a swan or two would visit my backyard! It gets pretty swampy when it rains because the builder did a terrible job of grading the land. That’s why I planted so many river birches! One day, during a rain storm, I expect Noah’s ark will float by…..:)
LikeLike
Mary, this is truly magnificent, bot your specimen and the shots!
LikeLike
Thanks Linda!
LikeLike
I certainly didn’t type that very well, did I?
(BOT = BOTH)
LikeLike
“regal beauty and form” … this is a perfect statement for the black swan. great photos !
LikeLike
Agreed….very regal. All dressed up, with ruffles included. Very beautiful bird!
LikeLike
thank you for visiting and liking my blog, your black swans are beautiful 🙂 I like them so so much
LikeLike
Thanks! They were the first black swans that I had ever “met” in person.
LikeLike