Bird Party

Blustery weather has made sighting conditions challenging in recent days, but today the rain is light and the waters calm.  Today will be mostly a day of indoor domestic tasks, so it's fortunate that the window over the kitchen sink affords a fantastic view of central Puget Sound, some islands, the Kitsap Peninsula, and, gods willing, the Olympic Mountains. No mountains today, though.

This morning has been good for sightings so far.  No SRKW, who so far are spending most of their time farther north in Admiralty Inlet this fall, but lots of birds, and I was lucky enough to spot a pair of Dall's porpoises (also called "broken back" or "spray" porpoises) cruising south at one point.  Flat water is ideal for spotting porpoises, whose dorsal fins are so small that they are easily hidden by any chop.

I haven't yet determined why, but there is Something about the water just offshore, framed by the kitchen window, that is very attractive to a lot of waterfowl.  That particular spot is currently gathering a small flock of horned grebes and another of surf scoters, beyond which I also spotted a Pacific loon earlier.  There's a bufflehead and a few common mergansers in the mix out there today too.  Rounding out the view as I gazed over the water this morning, a bald eagle flew over the waterfowl, who did not seem appropriately nervous given that the local eagles actively hunt the migratory brants that will be gathering here over the next few months.  Maybe those birds out there today know that the salmon will keep the eagles busy for a while.

Seeing the Forest for the Fins

A clear October day is a gift in the Salish Sea, one that pulls people out of their houses and into the brisk air, the sun and the wind.  The stable high-pressure weather systems that bring these lovely clear days usually also bring with them winds from the north, teasing with a hint of colder days to come as we enjoy the fleeting sun, and reminding those who know of the Duwamish legend of the battling winds.  The days here are short enough now that we savor sunlight, ignoring sunscreen to eke out whatever little vitamin D content we can, feeling the warmth on our faces that feels nurturing in the face of the long winter ahead.

With luck, walking the shores of central Puget Sound will grant other gifts:  here a baby harbor seal, newly weaned and just striking out on her own, is hauled out on the cobbles on the lee side of a point.  There a small flock of harlequin ducks rides on the rippling water.  And in the distance, the supreme gift:  the three pods of southern resident killer whales who call the Salish Sea their home, following the late fall salmon runs through Admiralty Inlet as far south as Point Defiance, entrancing those lucky enough to see their tall fins parting the water, their gleaming black and white bodies leaping clear of the waves and crashing back down again.

They are here to eat salmon, adult salmon who gather in the estuaries and wait for the rains to call them upstream, where the whales will not follow.  The salmon will fight the current, swim through a toxic soup of stormwater runoff from streets, yards, and rooftops, struggle past dams, and search silted streambeds for a patch of gravel where they can lay their eggs before they give up and give their bodies back to the water that bore them.  Their bodies are eaten by creatures of every size and type; microscopic decomposers who in turn feed the insects that the newly-hatched baby salmon will seek for food the following year, and terrestrial vertebrates--raccoons, otters, coyotes, eagles, others--who will drag their bodies out of the streambeds, or pass their post-salmon-eating waste in the surrounding forests, nourishing the soaring fir and cedar trees with nutrients from the deep oceans.

The trees grow tall and strong, shading the rivers, keeping the streams cool and fresh with oxygen, so the salmon eggs live, grow, and hatch.  The baby salmon make their way downstream, eating the insects that fed upon their parents' bodies, down to the eelgrass meadows that sway beneath the waves in the shallow estuaries, down to the graveled shorelines where the sand lance and surf smelt spawn, down to the salt water where they can feed and grow large, down to the Salish Sea where the orcas wait for them.  Every piece of this ecological web fits together neatly, supporting the SRKW population who, unlike other orca populations around the world, prefers salmon as their primary food.  

Of course, over the years the web has been stretched and damaged as humans try to find their place within it, often not aware that we are a critical part of it ourselves.  The magic of the Salish Sea is that it is, still, a functioning ecosystem in many ways.  The system described above does still work, more or less.  In recent years, more human effort has been made to protect and restore some of the habitats critical to the salmon, and therefore to the orcas, and this year the salmon are returning to some local rivers in unprecedented high numbers.

Growing up on the shores of the Salish Sea, watching the seasons change and the simple miracles of seeds growing, migrations happening, the tide answering the moon and the leaves answering the sun, even as I learned the science of these things I learned the magic of them too.  As an environmental educator, a naturalist, a mother, a priestess,  a homemaker, and a person yearning for reason, compassion, justice, and equality to prevail in the world, this magic sustains me, informs me, inspires me.  

The web of life that surrounds me here is also a metaphor for the wider world.  All things are connected; acting on one, we act on all.  The connections might not be obvious, but the changes become obvious the closer we look.  Does it seem like a stretch?  Stick with me, hopefully I'll make it clear here, with honor and humility, reverence and mirth.