The Wild Women of Wednesday Whale Watch

The sands of time are running out on my days at the Cape and I had to be sure I could get at least one more whale watch in before I have to go to more landlocked, whaleless, terrain. And so, bless my walking ladies, who are always game for adventure, they were willing to switch up our usual morning walk to a sunset whale watch out of Provincetown this past Wednesday.

And so, a grand day was planned. One of our members has a summer cottage right across from the bluffs of a Wellfleet beach and she invited us to break our journey there. Then on to the sunset whale watch on what was forecasted to be a lovely night, where the sun would set in one direction and the nearly full moon rise in the other. What could be more perfect?

Well, it was spectacularly beautiful at Pat’s cottage, a home that has been in the family for generations, surrounded by twisted Pitch Pines and the ground covered with Bearberry, Sweet fern and the rare Broom Crowberry. There are only four species in the Crowberry family and they aren’t related to anyone else, but Wellfleet is a place where it does flourish and her yard seems a Crowberry sanctuary. The path across the road takes you to headlands, which open up to a breathtaking view of ocean expanse. And on a clear blue day the ocean reflects a myriad of blues. Gorgeous and it is why these beaches of the National Seashore often make a top ten list of the worlds most beautiful beaches - a propitious beginning.

Next, on to Provincetown and our 5:30 boat departure. Amazingly, some of my ladies have never been on a whale watch though they have lived here most of their lives. So, I was praying this would be the unforgettable experience that it generally is. And again, even if the whales didn’t show in numbers, there would be the beauty of sunset and moonrise to make up for it.

But this is New England, what the weatherman forecasts and what actually happens are often two distinctly different things. No sooner had we left the harbor when, spreading from the land, came a “big, black cloud all heavy with rain”, first covering Provincetown, then overtaking us. Ah well, no matter, I had taken my usual stance right out on the prow of the boat. Perhaps this would just be a passing shower.

It takes about an hour to reach Stellwagon’s Bank where the whales are and en route we saw more Wilson’s Storm Petrels than I had ever seen before. They are a pigeon sized bird, black with a white rump and they seem to dance about on the water. Why they do that I don’t know, but they are pelagic meaning you only see them when you are out to sea, so it is always a treat. Lots of Shearwaters, both Greater and Sooty playing chicken with the waves, they zoom over the water inches from the white caps. So, with a gray/black sky, and rain pelting you at whatever zippy speed the boat was going and the air alive with birds it was pretty cool even without whales yet.

We were spotting whales off in the distance, and Connie, a first timer, was the first to see a breach off in the distance. But what you really hope for, feel cheated if you don’t get, are whales right by the boat, exhaling in your face, breaching within reach. And yeah God, we got pretty close to that. A mother and calf came right along side us and when the mother did her deep dive, the calf stayed at the surface which they often do for they aren’t so good at diving yet. But what was so cool, was how interested in us it was. Three times it did a spy hop where they come straight up out of the water to have a look around. To have the whale that we were watching watch us back was pretty memorable.

We saw a number of mother calf pairs, always good news, but the ultimate 5 star attraction of this trip was when two adult humpbacks breached simultaneously, right off our starboard side. Incredible! I have seen a lot of breaches, but never two erupting from the water side by side, and then arching away from each other so the splash was a mirror image of each other. Sea World couldn’t have trained anything more perfect. They also threw there flukes in unison when they went into a deep dive, and then one started flipper flapping where they slap the water with that long, white, flexible, pectoral fin. It must have done it 8 or 9 times in a row. If those two were trying out for whale Olympics I think they made the team! One of the ships crew who had been on 800 trips said he had never seen, and I add, will probably never again see, such a thing happen!

Wow, so soaked though we were, this was worth it. Coming back with lightning flashing around, driving the hour back to Green Briar with rain still pelting down and roads turning into rivers, was worth it. Trying to get the ladies safely to their doors in pitch dark down narrow trails was worth it. It all was worth it. It always is. I know I have quoted this before, from a song by Michael Card call the Job Trilogy but it is so apt,
“Can you take Leviathan home as a pet? If you merely touched him you’d never forget.”
And so we won’t. Thanks wild women of Wednesday for giving me a great excuse to go. And from now on, I don’t think I will even bother to check the weather!

Wild Suburbia

A few weeks ago we took another trip to our home in Buffalo to finalize work on the house and the yard before the new renters moved in. I am always lamenting that one day my home will be in suburbia and away from the wilder setting of the Cape, however, perhaps I should not despair, for of course, there is a good deal of wildlife that has made the switch to suburbia also.

While my husband tends to the interior work, I have the joy of working the outside. 10 hours of working the outside, for one thing renters do not do, is weed and here the soil is rich enough to grow thistles with trunks the size of Sequoias. And our “grass”, which is probably 10% grass and 90% clover, birds foot trefoil, wild strawberry, Creeping Charlie, etc. was way overgrown, at least by the neighbors standard of 1” perfectly, perfect Scott's cover lawns.

But here is where the cool part of intersecting with nature came in. As soon as I fired up the lawn mower and started cutting, a pair of barn swallows showed up, and like a scene from a Disney movie swooped and flew right along with me as I went back and forth.
Did I have some sort of bird charm working? Did they mistake me for Cinderella in need of a gown for the ball? No, they were simply opportunistic birds. As I passed back and forth over this conglomerate of plants, I was scaring up moths and other flying insects that were instantly snatched up by the swallows. Amazing how they nailed them 90% of the time. And for the most part the moths never saw it coming. And yet, one or two moths, either by coincidence or perhaps picking up a SOS pheromone from the others who had met a sad fate, flew in a straight line, unusual for moths, straight ahead and out of the yard and they were the ones that made it. Also might have been a coincidence but interesting all the same. It’s a large yard, so I would run out of gas, and the swallows would disappear, only to return the second I fired it up again. How cool is that! So even though it took me close to 2 hours to finish the mowing, I was entertained throughout.

We also do a lot of trimming of bushes etc. when we go and when we first got there I thought, what untrained gardener decided to prune the Hostas? Whoever it was they did a horrible job, and who prunes Hostas anyway? Ah…deer prune Hostas without much thought as to what the final job will look like, so out the kitchen window now is a row of normal Hostas and a row of chewed up ones. Deer browse is recognizable by the fact that they leave a ragged looking bite for they only have front teeth on their bottom jaw.

When we got back home we got an email from our old renters saying their son would miss seeing the deer with the injured leg that would come and dine at the window. Ah, helping the handicap, guess he can help himself and we shall just have to hope the new renters are as empathetic.

Here on the Cape, as you know, the dog and I head out for an off-leash walk around a bog each day, or now that it is summer, go over to swim at the nearby pond, where, floating on my back, I can watch osprey and swallows and dragonflies do their hunting. In Buffalo it is, of course, a leash walk and probably that is the single most dreaded thing for me about living there. Not the harsh winters, I like snow, but a dog that must be on a leash. Still, by then he will be old and perhaps a slow stroll will suit him. But again, it wasn’t as without excitement as I thought. Each morning, we headed out at dawn, and each morning in the small patch of woods that remain at the end of the street, we encountered a trio of deer, and each morning I about had my arm yanked out of the socket by a dog delirious to join the chase. Beside the deer, in the entrance to the woods there must have been 9 separate woodchuck holes. They were all pretty close together, so either this is the woodchuck version of a trophy home, or a family that normally would spread out, have been forced to live village style, taking a cue from prairie dogs perhaps! This whole area was farmland not that long ago, and so all these species were present and seem now to be managing to remain, thanks to a supply of Hosta and grass and, I imagine, vegetable gardens nearby.

So, perhaps my dread of a lifeless suburbia is unfounded. Besides, after frying for a few years in Texas, I am sure moving to Buffalo will seem like moving to the Rain Forest by comparison. And as I hate the heat, I have also decided I will gladly go garden there each June when the renters move out. For that matter, next year I anticipate it will take me about three months to complete the weeding! Yes, suburbia may not be so bad after all!