How life goes in cycles, he said. And he wondered was it a year before, or two, that he had sat at this restaurant table at the water's edge of the little harbour on the French shore of Lake Geneva for (or Lac Leman if you must be precise) ordering, of course, filets de perche; the same perch may be from the lake or from lakes in distant parts. Anyway, the June sunshine was bland and bearable, the bird life in this little pleasureboat harbour, much as usual: swans, mallard, coots. Then came a fierce cack-cack-cack from the direction of a biggish tree. Ah, he taught, magpies, too, and said so. Not at all, was the answer of the Geneva resident. These were frogs sounding off. Impossible. The metallic sound was such as he had heard all around him in Dublin, from the handsome highwayman and its offspring. No soft frog throat could produce that clamour. But it was so. He went in the direction of the tree to find two youngsters with small nets, poking around in the flotsam at the edge of the pier. What were they after? Frogs. Just then, but out of reach, a head bobbed up, a croak was uttered from what was undoubtedly a frog. You live and learn.
As to numbers, the mallards were a surprise in herding no fewer than 11 young, which had grown to be nearly adult, with adult appetites. Nobody could stop the throwing down to them of bits of bread and even frites, which are less natural, you'd think, than even the bread. Drake guarding the rear, duck mother watching the forward party, they had no rivals. The swans, at this time anyway, kept to the shingle beach across the wall - with eight hefty, and still fluffy, grey cygnets. Nearby at another harbour, two swans contemplated a very poor nest, just above the waterline. For the lake was rising due to melting snow, and three eggs remained to be hatched. There was a fourth, broken, and one of the parents was lapping at the remains of a yolk.
The restaurant food? Good, but one helping of perch goes a long way. There are better fish in the lake. And you envy the residents of Geneva with the abundance of lakeside walks and restaurants, and the vivid birdlife. Y