And of course, there are the swans.

Seagulls, you’d expect. But swans?

Actually, the elegant avian creatures have been in the Bay for some time. Marisa Miller, urban park ranger at the Salt Marsh Nature Center, said the birds came over to these shores along with the first European settlers. “People thought they were pretty and brought them here with them,” she said.

The settlers “would clip their wings so they couldn’t escape from the fountains and ponds at the [colonial] homes, but fortunately their wings grew back and they congregated here,” Miller added. “They escaped and got into the bay.”

The swans seem to prefer the Bay rather than the ocean because “there is a lot of protected space, not a lot of storms, and there are no predators in the Bay,” she said. “And there is a lot of fish they can eat there.”

The swans like it so much, in fact, they congregate at the Bay in all kinds of weather and water conditions.

Although the birds are friendly, Miller cautions to admire them from a distance. “They have strong wings, and I always tell people not go too close,” she said. “We don’t like to encourage people to feed them too much bread,” she said. “The yeast in bread can cause infections.”

They’re certainly not dependent on humans for getting dinner. Seaweed, grass, crabs, and small fish are readily available in the Bay, and they are quick learners in survival. “They watch the adults swim and learn from them, they can walk themselves, they can feed themselves and they learn how to swim pretty early,” Miller said. “By the end of the summer, the young can live on their own.”

“They are successful and beautiful creatures,” she said.