The Swans That Queen Elizabeth Sent
Near Lakeland, Florida
Lake Morton, a few blocks east of downtown Lakeland, has had swans since at least nineteen twenty-three. Then, slowly, they disappeared. Alligators and pets took their toll. By nineteen fifty-four, the last swan in Lakeland was gone.
The city tried to raise money for new birds. The fundraising went nowhere. Then, in early nineteen fifty-seven, a former Lakeland resident living abroad reached out to the British royal household on behalf of the city. The letter, or the connection behind it, worked. In nineteen fifty-seven, Queen Elizabeth the Second presented the city of Lakeland with a pair of mute swans from the royal flock on the River Thames.
They were not symbolic swans. They were birds, transported across the Atlantic with the logistical care that any trans-oceanic animal transfer requires, and then installed on Lake Morton, where they immediately began doing what mute swans do: eating aquatic plants, competing with each other, and eventually producing cygnets.
Today the descendants of those royal swans still live on the lakes around downtown Lakeland, and the city looks after the flock.
The swans have become the city's most visible emblem. You will see them on murals, on park signs, and waddling across the promenade with the particular confidence of animals that know they own the place.
