Swan II

Well, I'll be damned things have changed in the last 400 years. The best source for the natural history of southern New England in the Pilgrim era is William Wood, New England Prospect, 1634. I hadn't read the book in years, but I remembered it and turned to it this afternoon to solve the Thanksgiving Swan problem. Wood was a good observer and a fine writer. He may have exaggerated a little to make New England seem attractive to potential settlers, but I find him pretty accurate. Here's what he has to say about Turkey's (the archaic spelling is retained):

The Turky is a very large Bird, of a blacke colour, yet white in flesh; much bigger than our English Turky. He hathe the use of his long legs so ready, that he can runne as fast as a Dogge and flye as well as a Goose: of these sometimes there will be forty, threescore, and a hundred of a flocke, sometimes more and sometimes lesse; their feeding is Acornes, Hawes, and Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent our English corne…somehave killed ten or a dozen in halfe a day…. These Turkies remaine all the year long, the price of a good Turkie cocke is foure shillings; and he is well worth it , for he may be in weight forty pound; a Hen two shillings. 

Wood got the color, running ability, and diet correct. I'm not sure about the flying ability and the size of the flocks is certainly bigger than we see today. A forty pound cock Turkey also seems a little excessive especially if it had to fly! The English Turkey wasn't a native, by the way, it had been introduced to England from Spain who discovered it in Mexico.

Wood mentions three kinds of goose. One is the Brant, a small goose that still winters on the coast. The largest goose described is clearly today's Canada Goose which in the good old days was a migrant species. A Canada goose could be bought for a shilling and a half. The third goose is the medium sized Snow Goose. Here's what Wood says about that:

The second kind is a white Goose, almost as big as an English tame Goose, these come in great flockes about Michelmasse [September 29], sometimes there will be two or three thousand in a flocke, these continue six weeks [to mid-November], and so fly to the southward, returning in March, and staying six weekes more, returning againe to the Northward; the price of one of theses is eight pence. 

So in Pilgrim times there were lots of Snow Geese in Massachusetts just at the time of the first Thanksgiving. The pattern of migration is the same as today only the numbers are different. Did we hunt out this northern population? Have the geese gotten better at navigating to Maryland and points south? How much did Wood exaggerate?

Finally, the Swan:

There be likewise many Swannes which frequent the fresh ponds and rivers, seldom conforting themselves with Duckes and Geese; these be very good meate, the price of one is six shillings.

 

We have "many" instead of solid numbers like we have for the Turkey and Snow Goose. The word frequent is used in its older sense of inhabiting, and the fact that swans seldom were seen on ponds with ducks and geese points to a certain scarcity as does the price for a bird that would be half the weight of a 40 pound turkey. Of course, the swan was "very good meate" and a traditional meal for the rich so it may have fetched a premium. Wood included a fairly extensive glossary of Wampanoag words at the end of his book. He includes Indian words for duck, goose, and turkey, but not swan for whatever that's worth.

To conclude, you could have swan for Thanksgiving if you were a Pilgrim, but it seems you'd have to work a lot harder to find one than to get a turkey or a goose. Still it appears that climate change which seem to be making the Massachusetts coast more attractive to Swans and Snow Geese has not been a factor in the decline in the local population. Looks like we shot out the birds