Australia’s surfing swans

As Australia celebrates Mick Fanning’s third ASP World Championship crown win at Hawaii’s legendary Pipeline, it seems it’s not just Australian people who love to surf. On the waves of Queensland’s Gold Coast there are even surfing swans.

I’ve posted quite a bit in the past about surfing animals – some dogs, a goat, an alpaca… But all these animals never really wanted to surf in the first place. I think the dogs learn to enjoy it, but probably not the other animals. That’s what’s so cool about Australia’s surfing swans. A video taken at the beach in Kirra, Gold Coast has recently surfaced showing four black surfing swans apparently enjoying the waves. They’re wild, in a little gang and seem to be purposely waiting for waves to come and then riding them in towards the beach.

From the Courier Mail:

The YouTube video has been viewed more than 20,000 times while Queensland’s Nine News Executive Producer Cullen Robinson said it had been viewed another 75,000 times on their website, been shared 11,000 times from the Ninemsn website and was ‘liked’ 10,000 times.

The video starts with the four surfing swans just chilling out together, floating in the ocean and then cuts to two of them catching a wave. One takes the wave all the way to the beach, almost colliding with onlookers, before flying a few meters in only to turn around and catch the end of another wave, which it takes even further in past the small crowd.

Four black swans went out the back and started catching waves, several times, before flying away to another break. What is even more curious is that these swans knew where the peak was.

Although they were all black, there was one particular swan that stood out. The bird caught the wave in the peak, set a perfect surf line and rode it to the beach.

–Surfer Today

Check out the raw video of the surfing swans on Surfer Today and see the video report and interview with the man who captured the footage on the Sydney Morning Herald media website.

Screen shot of the Gold Coast's surfing swans

Screen shot of the Gold Coast’s surfing swans

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