My profession as a military officer and as an extension of that, a strategist, has been fulfilled by a holiday trip down to Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island. My wife Rachel, daughter Grace and I were hiking along the Glendhu Bay Track adjacent to Lake Wanaka (about 5 minutes drive from the town of Wanaka) when Rachel spotted two Black Swans in the water. The pictures we took don’t do them justice, as they were acquired via iPhone camera. Make no mistake, they were beautiful, and we had a better view than available at left.
When they became alerted to our presence, they swam out to the middle of the lake. When we doubled back to the car, we found they had returned to the shoreline, and promptly repeated their habit of swimming away.
We, and I, feel especially fortunate to have seen such a beautiful creature that has sparked so much interest in the disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations.
*Click the image below to read more about Black Swans in nature ~ only endemic to Australia and New Zealand:
