“Tell me,” I once asked Nikos Panagiotopoulos, head of the West Macedonia Wildlife and Bird Conservation Station, “have you ever seen anything like this?” “No, never,” he said at once – it was evident that he was asking himself the same question. For a few seconds neither of us spoke, a small tribute to a great cinematic romance with an inglorious ending. In the feathered love of two swans.

The story unfolded like a fairy tale for me when I was in Ioannina a few days ago. In Pamvotida, the swans seem to have arranged a dance. They came and went from Mavili Square to Kira Frosina, a podium between the gray of the lake and the sky. However, one of them was swimming alone. Sometimes the rest of the herd approached, and sometimes moved away. Sometimes he stopped on the shore, but unlike the others, he never rushed for the delicacies that the world had to offer. He was the only one who wore a collar with insignia around his thin neck. “Yes, this is the sad swan of Kastoria,” they answered me when I asked. Why is he sad? And what is his business in Janina? I should have known more. The person who knows history best of all is Nikos Panagiotopoulos. According to him, the swan arrived from Crete, where he lived in the zoo of Heraklion. After a stop at the Athens Relief Center to treat health problems caused by his long imprisonment, in the spring of 21 he was taken to Lake Kastoria. The same route, first Athens and then Kastoria, was followed a few months later by a female swan who was found emaciated in a lake near Lamia. Experts believed that for both birds, Swan Lake, as Lake Kastoria is called, would be a new beginning. But, according to Nikos, a flock of swans in Kastoria did not greet them very warmly. “It was difficult for them to get into the company, so in order not to be lonely, they got to know each other, and so a great love arose. They even left the place where the swans lived, and went 2 kilometers away, where they built a nest for themselves.” The couple became well known in Kastoria, one swan never let the other out of his sight, they did everything together.

So they lived as lovers for several months, until a dramatic incident occurred in February 22. While they were on land, as they got used to people, a flock of stray dogs attacked the birds and managed to bite the female swan. “Neighbors alerted me and within minutes I was at the scene,” says Mr. Panagiotopoulos. “I saw a male with spread wings circle over a female to protect her from dogs.” He immediately grabbed the wounded swan to take it to the first aid station. “As I approach, I find that another swan has followed us. He went to the doctor’s office and sat there. At some point, I took him out, but he returned and sat down near the care center (which is located on Kyknon Street). Then I put him in an examination room to get the best treatment. We have seen incredible things happen, like when a male feeds a female through her pelvis.”

He tried to protect his partner from the dogs but failed.

But, unfortunately, the swan died from his injuries. “I had to take the male out to get the dead female, but she sat next to him and stroked him, as if to say, wake up, get up. At some point, I managed to pull it out. I even moved him to the other side of the lake, about 15 kilometers away, so that we could bury another bird, but when I returned to the station, he was already there. As soon as he saw me, he started screaming. Finally I closed it and took another swan. For several days after that, the swan did not leave the station. He stayed there, waiting for his match or mourning it. He stopped eating, accepting any help. His grief was absolute. Something had to be done, something radical. “We were afraid that we would lose him too. That’s how we thought about Yanina.”

Somehow, the sad swan of Kastoria was found swimming in the unknown waters of Lake Ioannina on February 27, 22, in an attempt to restore vitality. Even there, the elders did not welcome him with open arms. “Swans also have a hierarchy,” local volunteer Kostas Bestas explains to K. “And in Ioannina, the Castorian swan was the last in the hierarchy. The flock was chasing him.” Of course, he had no appetite for company, so for many weeks he swam alone, a sad lonely swan. Everyone knew that recovering from psychological trauma would not be easy. Swans mate only once, choose a partner and go through life with him. “The only chance he can recover is if he finds a young mate after a while, because large females mate. Now he is trying to acclimatize.” A group of volunteers follows him and keeps a record of his adaptation.

“To love, to fall in love is not a human privilege. This story has a sad ending, but it allows us to understand a lot about the emotions of animals,” says Nikos Panagiotopoulos, who often travels to Ioannina to trace the evolution of the swan. “What should guide us. Humans kill their partners, swans sacrifice themselves for their partners.”