Whale Speak!

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Kate

The short answer is: a lot of the time, humpbacks breach because they’re just itchy. How else are they going to scratch that huge back?

But the other three answers are also true! Big strong males like to show off to females by rocketing out of the water as high as they can go and making, literally, as big a splash as possible!

In the early summer, after the humpbacks have had a bit of a feed and feel confident they’re going to live another year, they celebrate. A lot of the small splashing around like what’s happening in this photo is saying hello to their neighbours, inviting them to join in the block party: The water is warm! There’s so much food! Ain’t life grand?

The warning signal, I’ve never witnessed this, and I haven’t yet found documentation of breaching and splashing to use as warning. The context I was given in conversation with a humpback of warning one male away from HIS group. SPLASH! Can you see how large and strong I am?

This same display is used to warn sea lions back, warn rambunctious teenagers away from infants, and to intimidate predators out of their hunting attempts. In the case of predators, they also give me a loud tail slap, which reminds me of a beaver: Heads up everyone! Trouble’s coming!

This is all information gleaned from animal communication. If you’d like to try this yourself, check out this episode of the Joyful Telepathy podcast on Wild Communication!

Small, shiny things

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Kate

I took this photo a few weeks ago while Sweetie & I were having a campfire and watching the sunset. Remember the velella?

These are tiny jelly fish that live on the very surface of the water, and they grow a tiny sail of cartilage from their backs and sail wherever the wind takes them.

For millions of them, the wind will blow them on to a beach to die.

I really, really identify with the velella sometimes. Well, maybe it’s more that I’m tapping into the sense of a question mark that so many people have for our species on this planet, like we’re 7.5 billion velella blowing around on the ocean. I tap into this feeling whenever I look at the “BIG PICTURE” stuff.

You know what I’m talking about, everyone’s felt it.

You can look up at the sky, or look at the earth from above, and marvel at the seeming randomness of it all… so many velella, at the mercy of the ocean and the wind.

But you also can’t escape the artistry of it, the beauty of the world from above, how pretty everything is when you just look at it in the right way.

How the velella sparkle in the sunset on the beach.

It’s all so fleeting and temporary. It’s also timeless and beautiful.

Am I getting a little too philosophical for y’all today? Here’s what the velella made me think:

God, we’re all just sparkling little husks on the beach.

How do you wrap up a sense of fatalism, reverence and expansiveness in one sentence? One thought?

In that moment, at the same time I was absorbing this sense of fatalism and acceptance, I also thought that the velella *choose* to be as pretty as they are in death. They’re like little sequins in the sunlight. Palm-sized jewels underfoot.

And then I thought how important it is to *be* beautiful, to add beauty to the world, to just be graceful, accepting and shiny. How every little velella made my world sparkle that night.