Crumley watches, year in and year out, as a pair of mute swans struggle, against the odds, to raise young on a wild patch of loch. The pen starts to lose her eggs to predators and the cob begins to disappear for longer and longer periods. Then comes the day when a third swan, younger and stronger than the first pen, appears at the other end of the loch. This beautiful record is Jim Crumley s homage to these noble creatures but it is also an elegy, a love song to one swan whose silent tragedy he watched from one season to the next. Through his words he has ensured that there will be a more lasting monument to the life of this swan than a small pyre of white feathers. Illustrated by Harry Brockway s striking wood engravings, Jim Crumley s book is a poignant work of observation and celebration.