Saturday, October 29th
When you watch someone struggle and there is nothing you can do...
...you hope...
...with every little bit of energy or action your hope grows, if ever so slightly.
...you call, you write, you talk to all you know...
...for that is all you can do.
...when the end comes there is tremendous sadness...
...with that sadness is the knowing that the struggle has ended...
...there is no peace for the watchers of the struggle...
...that will come in due time.
...but there is peace for the ones who struggle no more...
...Polaris J-28 is at peace now...
...she did all she could for her family and she could do no more.
...her baby's struggle to survive without mother's milk has likely ended...
...how difficult it must have been for them.
...their care givers were their family members...
...especially young Star J-46 who helped them as best as she could...
...herding fish toward mom and baby...
...taking little brother for a while to give mom a break.
So now they are gone and the family and community will adjust...
...just as we humans will as well...
...to forget and move on is just not right...
...these whales are at the mercy of our human actions...
...how long they have adjusted to what humans have done...
...clean waters became toxic,
...fish shoreline habitats destroyed,
...abundance of wild salmon killed off by dams,
...noise in the waters made it hard to hear...
...and let's not forget invasive research harming our friends.
...action must be taken and not turn our heads...
...our orca neighbors and friends deserve more...
...you love them?...
...then keep up the fight to bring back the wild salmon.
Will it be realized before it's too late...
...that restoring wild salmon is a key to it all...
...a healthy environment and healthy humans too...
...we are they and they are us.
This is a continuation of the previous post from October 21 and the humpback whales vocalizing throughout the night...
The previous post had a recording from the middle of the night.
This post has a recording from about 5:30 in the morning and it sounds quite different from the other recording...
...thought it interesting...
Friday into Saturday, October 21-22
...I had heard there were several humpbacks on the west side of San Juan Island in the morning on Friday, but that was it...
...why was I surprised to hear a humpback over the Lime Kiln hydrophones starting at 8:02pm?...hum...and it (or they) went on and on...intermittent...that is until after midnight...
...yes...the vocals continued through the night and into the next day...last I heard them was around 8:30 a.m.
...I had to go see if I could find where 'the' humpback was so I took a drive...pulled over at a spot I like and there in the distance wasn't one humpback but two!...well, that was easy...
...I went to Lime Kiln and and as I was almost to the lighthouse, looking out off shore while I was walking, I caught a glimpse of another blow out of the corner of my eye - what? 3 HBs? wow!...
...I waited and waited and soon I saw way in the distance the two...
...and then what I thought had been the third humpback actually turned into being two more!...they were much closer, as you can see...
...makes you wonder just who was doing all that chatter during the night...
...it could have been these or even others who might have passed through...there were humpbacks spotted in at least three other areas today...
...here's a sample of what some of those vocals sounded like...
...the Southern Residents...well, they had come in, gone down into Puget Sound...a long way down in there and then came back out the next day and were seen heading west yesterday...
Tuesday, October 11th
...today some K and L pod whales were somewhere in the area but I didn't think they were going to get within range of me seeing them today...oh, how wrong I was!
...mid-afternoon some whales had made it to the west side and were ever so slowly making their way up island...
...the L54s along with Nyssa L-84 and Wave Walker L-88 were present...I didn't see very many whales...hum...
...as they got a bit closer to Lime Kiln, Cappuccino K-21 was present and Opus K-16 and Sonata K-35...Ino L-54, Coho L-108, Nyssa L-84 and a couple others...
...they were pretty far from shore and back lit by the late afternoon sun...
...I was just about to pack up when I noticed down island three whales in the distance...okay, "stay put" I said to myself...
...and the Stunning (to me) Encounter was soon to unfold...
...after noticing the three whales and keeping an eye on their progress, I heard a blow that was much closer - "oh, my, a line of whales!"...and they were just about in the park...
...down under they went and down they stayed for about three minutes...
...while waiting on this line of whales to surface again I hear someone say, "Look! They are right on shore!"... I did. They were. But those were fewer and they were farther down from the line of whales I had seen...
...and then that line surfaced, but this time they were no longer going up island they had turned in toward shore...
...I snapped as many images as I could in the waning light and hoped I would get some IDs...but did it matter?...no not really...not this time...
...and here is what they did...a short clip of what lasted about 10 minutes...
...all I could think of toward the end of this were the words:
The Purpose of Being
Interpret it how you like.
Think it dramatic?
It is.
They are.
And we know and respect that.
