The whooper is a swan of superlatives. She is the largest, most numerous, and enjoys the widest range of her elegant sorority of sisters. That range stretches across half the northern globe, from Iceland to the Aleutians. And they fly high as well as far, a flock having been sighted by a pilot at an altitude of 27,000 feet while migrating from Iceland to Ireland, the swan's version of a transatlantic. Not bad for an avian jumbo jet with limited fuel on board.

But there's another side to the grace of Swan Lake. Takeoff is anything but elegant. In fact it is laborious if not downright clumsy, the frenetic slapping of webbed feet to water and heavy wings flailing in air, until finally, liftoff. And loveliness doesn't preclude aggressiveness. The comely S curve of her neck can uncoil like a snake at any territorial intrusion. This beak jousting can be bloody, and, at times, deadly.

Whooper swans in snowstorm, the island of Hokkaido in far northern Japan.