My phone is too full of photos so I’ve done a complete Marie Kondo: delete, delete, delete. These are some great ones I thought I’d share before they’re gone forever…
You can’t see them, but I DID. Eight, yes EIGHT orca whales! Leaping and breaching, one right after the other; this experience was beyond magnificent. They were close to the boats that you CAN see, and yes, I was totally freaking out. It was my first sighting. Magical doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling because for me, it was as meaningful as the day I saw wolves in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Joy filled all the spaces of my heart, but the moment was also tinged with sadness because I know there are still some killer whales in captivity and that is so, so very wrong.
Sand or gravel barge with push tug? I’m not sure.
Another big boat…
Snow on the Olympic Mountains!
Now the photos are gone, but in my heart and mind, they will live forever. Time to replace them with new memories.
Scrolling through the vast wasteland of the internet, I discovered this picture and it immediately brought tears to my eyes.
I could actually feel myself as the girl caressing this magnificent humpback whale.
The essential and enduring connection and communion with other creatures is a combination of compassion and empathy and kindness.
I did a little research and learned about the work of Rachel Byler, artist and creator of The Colorful Cat Studio.
🐋It’s on my May Birthday Wish List as I could gaze at this painting forever and ever. It brings a simple yet complex joy.🐋
One of my favorite poets, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver wrote about humpback whales:
HUMPBACKS
There is, all around us, this country of original fire
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something has to be holding our bodies in its rich and timeless stables or else we would fly away.
Off Stellwagon off the Cape, the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it like children at play.
They sing, too. And not for any reason you can’t imagine.
Three of them rise to the surface near the bow of the boat, then dive deeply, their huge scarred flukes tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing just where it will happen; suddenly they smash through the surface, someone begins shouting for joy and you realize it is yourself as they surge upward and you see for the first time how huge they are, as they breach, and dive, and breach again through the shining blue flowers of the split water and you see them for some unbelievable part of a moment against the sky- like nothing you’ve ever imagined- like the myth of the fifth morning galloping our of darkness, pouring heavenward, spinning; then
they crash back under those black silks and we all fall back together into that wet fire, you know what I mean
I know a captain who has seen them playing with seaweed, tossing the slippery lengths of it into the air.
I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever she can, and nudge it gently along the bow with her long flipper.
I know several lives worth living.
listen, whatever it is you try to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you like the dreams of your body,
its spirit longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry back into the fields of glittering fire
where everything, even the great whale, throbs with song.
My crow cousins have been leaving gifts for me all around the garden and deck.
Shiny and sparkly!
So far I’ve discovered these four baubles. I always look up to see if I can catch the gift giver; so far I haven’t, but I say thank you out loud as I pocket my treasures.
Crows are known to give small gifts to people who pay attention to them or feed them. The phenomenon is actually called “gifting”. I don’t feed my local crow family as there is plenty to eat without my intervention, but I do talk to them and generally love their presence, so maybe they feel that emotion and return the affection. I’ve read that crows (and other corvids) remember the faces of those who are mean to them and those who are especially kind.
Some of my neighbors don’t appreciate our community of crows as much as I do, and I’m positive they aren’t receiving the same kinds of gifts like I am.
I’m full of gratitude to my bird family Thank you, cousins!
I share my world with coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, skunks, possums, lots of bunnies, even more rats, and an assortment of birds including scrub jays, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, hawks, egrets, and herons.
And owls.
Late at night I’m lucky to hear the hoots of a mating pair of Great Horned Owls in the tallest eucalyptus trees. It’s a soothing sound as I fall asleep, the hooting of owls in the distance.
Last night was different. I was awakened at 2:30 a.m. with the sound of that distinctive hoo-hoo-hoo only MUCH closer. Even through a closed window, it was LOUD, and so was the answering call.
This back and forth conversation didn’t stop for an hour and it was impossible to get back to sleep.
I learned that owls lay eggs in March, so maybe that’s what the chat was all about. My around the corner neighbor has an owl box, so that’s a logical thought.
Hopefully, they took turns hunting all the rats and mice around here, too.
Symbolically, hearing owls at night provides protective energy. The spiritual meaning of hearing an owl could be that it’s important to establish energetic boundaries.
Owls use their excellent hearing, keen eyesight, and silent wings to hunt and keep safe. So when our vision fails us in life, the owl’s call at night symbolizes protection and guidance. Hearing an owl at night can represent gaining a new direction in life.
Owls use their calls to claim their territory, to signal that there’s a predator nearby or to communicate with their partner.
The meaning of hearing two owls is related to spiritual enlightenment. An owl is the ultimate symbol of wisdom and maturity.
Two owls hooting is a sign that you’re in the middle of strong spiritual energies and you need to let them lead you into the changes your soul is going through.
It’s a reminder to open your heart and embrace the changes.
Higher forces have recognized it, so they’re sending you owls, as a dose of additional energy to move forward.
Owls are always carriers of important messages. If you’re wondering what it means to hear two owls late at night, the answer lies in the way you observe things around yourself.
Owls want you to change your perspective about recent events and try to discover why they really happened. There’s a hidden message behind it and you need to discover it.
If you hear an owl hooting near your house and wonder: “What does it mean when an owl hoots outside your house?”, the answer will cheer you up: an owl outside your house is considered to be a signal of good luck.
Owls are observed as highly spiritual animals and their hooting can only bring positive vibes to you.
Although different cultures have different interpretations of owl symbolism, almost every culture treats owls as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. joyceelliot.com
I’m tired today, but always find joy and gratitude in my wild friends.
It’s almost time for the March full moon and the night sky is clear and bright.
Whether they’re House Finches or Robins doesn’t really matter. They are adorable!
I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and looked out at an amazing sight. There were literally dozens of chirpy birds invading my garden, SO MANY I couldn’t even count them all.
I no longer have feeders because of my arch nemeses, RATS, so what they’re feasting on here is actually an invasive species, a Brazilian Pepper tree that somehow sprouted into the neighbor’s yard and they didn’t get rid of it like we did.
There’s no way I could capture as many as there are, but I’d say definitely more than fifty of these lovely red breasted birds are visiting Casa de Enchanted Seashells.
This makes sense because they’re eating red berries from the pepper tree.
They stayed for about an hour, saturating my world with their most delightful song and chirpy calls to friends and family. Every tree in the garden is full of these guys as well the rosemary and lavender bushes.
I’ve never seen anything like this. For me, It’s as exciting as spotting a pod of whales or dolphin. I’m grateful they chose my garden to visit. Pure joy!
Kids really do listen to everything we say, that’s absolutely true.
One time I looked up as a crow flew by and said, “Hello, cousin!”
Angel Girl asked me why I said that, and I told her that crows are very smart and that I feel they’re like family to me.
The next time we saw crows fly by, she pointed and said, “There goes one of your cousins, Grandma!”
Mom asked her why she said that, and Angel Girl told her all the crows in the whole world are Grandma’s cousins, which is a great thing to her because she loves her own cousins.
The best part of the story is that it makes perfect sense to her that animals are family. I like that a lot.
Besides a murder of crows, there are other collective nouns for crows: a horde, a hover, a mob, a parcel, a parliament, and a storytelling.
As for a storytelling of crows? This is a bit of an unknown but crows do tend to gather in large flocks and are known for their loud ‘caw’. Perhaps someone observed this and decided that they weren’t so much plotting a murder but were telling stories to each other, https://www.birdspot.co.uk/
This photo from late yesterday afternoon must tell quite the story; I’ve never seen so many crows on the school field.
Seeing crows at sundown is a common occurrence around here, but not on this grand scale. Everyone driving by slowed down to gawk and neighbors came out to record it like I did.
On the roof, on the fence, on the fields — all my cousins!
Update: I sent the photo to my original Angel Boy and received a video text from his almost seven-year-old clone, AB 2.0 — “Hey Grandma, that’s a lot of cousins!”
After yet another too real lucid dream about my kitty Bandit, I’ve been thinking about all of my children, from Misty to Tawny to Sabrina, Yenta, and Stella Rondo (named for a character in a short story by Eudora Welty) to Victor, Blackie, darling Ban — cats and dogs, mostly Border Collies, but also my rescued wolf hybrid Beowulf (of course) and crazy Tovah, my neurotic black German Shepherd.
I can’t wait to meet my babies again; happy and healthy. It’s going to be HEAVENly.
This post seems like a perfect place to share a little Leon Russell, Over The Rainbow…
Last night in the garden around 9pm, I heard this chorus of beautiful songdogs; my beloved coyote family. This lasted nearly a full minute, along with other shorter lyrical melodies.
Turn up the volume, as it was extremely LOUD! I wanted to run up the hill to join them, but I did that once and broke my wrist in the dark, so I merely sent them all my love.
I know what you’re thinking, but there are other reasons for this symphony besides a fresh meal…
“The sound of coyotes howling and yipping at night sometimes causes people concern and alarm. Some mistakenly believe howling indicates that a group of coyotes has made a kill. While coyotes howl for a variety of reasons, it is not likely because they have downed prey. Doing so would draw attention and might attract competing coyotes or other predators to their location, which is not something a hungry coyote would want to do. Coyotes howl and yip primarily to communicate with each other and establish territory. They may bark when they are defending a den or a kill.” https://wildlifehelp.org/solution/district-columbia/coyote/should-i-be-concerned-if-i-hear-coyotes-howling-yipping-or-barking/93
Even if you’re not from Southern California, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of P-22, a mountain lion that resided in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, on the eastern side of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Somehow he crossed freeways to settle in the rugged, chaparral-cloaked slopes of one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. He remained there since then, hunting mule deer and other animals for food in the natural areas of the park.
I think photo credit goes to NatGeo
P-22 was first identified in 2012 and was the subject of significant media attention, also as the subject of books, television programs, and works of art. He even had his own Facebook page, courtesy of savelacougars.org/
He wasn’t just a big cat. He was a symbol of resistance, resistance to the idea that LA has no wildlife, to development in his own backyard, to dwindling numbers of mountain lions in SoCal.
P22 had been living in Griffith Park for about ten years, but it’s as if he was actually trapped. He could never find a mate as no other mountain lion could reach the park without getting killed on the freeways.
What a confusing world he must’ve lived in with all these loud humans with their fast cars and concrete. For me, he served as a reminder (along with coyotes and bobcats) that we have always been the invaders. They were here first.
A mountain lion believed to be the famous P-22 allegedly attacked and injured a small dog in Silver Lake until he was scared off by the pet’s owner. After that, he was captured and sedated for medical testing to evaluate his condition.
So far, I haven’t found satisfactory answers to my questions about why he wasn’t previously relocated, moved to a sanctuary, or helped before he reached such a deplorable physical condition. It seems to me as if he was used as a test subject solely for the purpose that his movements and actions could be studied by humans.
Did anyone actually CARE about HIS quality of life?
However, when he was captured, according to the LA Times, the wildlife agencies said in a joint statement that they had “already been in contact with leading institutions for animal care and rehabilitation centers”.
Too little, too late.
In 2016 it was believed that he killed and ate a koala from the LA Zoo,
California mountain lions are a “specially protected species.” Killing a mountain lion without a depredation permit is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year’s imprisonment in the county jail or a fine of up to $10,000.
P22 was the focus of research led by federal biologists trying to “better understand how mountain lions are surviving in increasingly urbanized and fragmented habitat,” said Kate Kuykendall, acting deputy superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area. (Curated from https://www.baltimoresun.com/la-me-mountain-lion-to-remain-20160316-story.html)
Officials wept when announcing the decision and shared images of a severe herniation of his abdominal organs. Multiple organs were shutting down and he had a parasitic infection. The poor old guy was in pain and suffering. At that point, there was really no other compassionate solution. Sadly, I agree.
Is there no end to human cruelty, the tendency to exploit other living creatures? How disgusting.
Rest in peace and freedom, you beautiful creature.
