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Welcome, rain and wildlife: Glad to say goodbye to smoky, hot summer

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, September 26, 2017

By CHRIS WOODS For The Beachcomber

Welcome, rain and wildlife: Glad to say goodbye to smoky, hot summer
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Welcome, rain and wildlife: Glad to say goodbye to smoky, hot summer
Transient orcas T36B (second from left), along with what is assumed to be her other family members, swim through Colvos Passage on the evening of Sept. 8. (Kelly Keenan Photo) Islander Kelly Keenan said she was alone on the beach when she heard the whales breathing. “The sun was going down, the water was flat and still. All I could hear was the sound of orcas breathing, poof … the sound they make when they surface to breathe, just before they disappeared under the water again. Catching orcas twice in one week; I sure hope there are more to come this season,” she said. Ann “Orca Annie” Stateler of the Vashon Hydrophone Project said the waters around Vashon Island have been abuzz with transient whales this month, and its likely that there will be more in the area as their population is thriving while the Southern Residents are still struggling. The Southern Resident J-Pod lost five whales last year, and Stateler said the population is likely in distress from the deaths, as well as the dismal Chinook salmon numbers. They’ve been spending more time up north in Canada, she said. “I feel like everything is in flux. We are in a new era,” she said. “When I moved here in 1994, we sort of had a regular season where we could expect to see Southern Residents in the fall and early winter, but especially in the last decade, they’re coming in less and less, and now you’re way more likely to see a transient here than a resident.”
A scattering of great blue herons feeding at Tramp Harbor this summer. (Jim Diers Photo) Birders and commuters alike reported seeing as many as a dozen birds at a time spaced out along the Tramp Harbor shoreline at low tide throughout the late summer. Vashon Audubon’s Harsi and Ezra Parker, who guide the monthly field trips, report that most of the herons were juvenile birds. They note that, “it’s difficult to know for certain whether there were actually more herons present on Vashon than in previous summers, or if there was just an unusually abundant food source, which attracted many birds to the same small feeding area.” There were once large communal nesting sites, known as rookeries or heronries, on Vashon, but the birds stopped breeding here after bald eagles destroyed their nests. The Parkers said it’s plausible that the herons could be breeding here again, but their conspicuously large nests have yet to be discovered or verified. There are many confirmed rookeries in nearby locations throughout the Puget Sound area, and it’s more likely the young birds came here seeking food.

I’m so relieved the rain has returned. Three months of near-relentless sunshine felt oppressive and ominous to me. I missed moss and mushrooms and fern fronds that don’t turn to dust at the merest touch. I confess I was mostly done with our dry summer by the Fourth of July — preoccupied with thoughts of flames sweeping up our bluff every time I heard fireworks, which senselessly and carelessly went on for weeks after the holiday.

By August, our island was unusually hot and tucked under a blanket of smoke from distant fires causing eerie red suns and moons to cast an apocalyptic and alien quality on our familiar views. When news reports of hurricanes and earthquakes began to fight for headline space with the cacophony of domestic and international crises, I wasn’t able to make my usual escape to the woods to clear my head because I’m one of the sensitive individuals described in air quality warnings. I had to forgo my daily therapy walk and retreat to a cool basement room my husband calls “the hole.”

During those days quarantined from the smoke, I reflected on the ways nature requires us to accept difficult choices and inevitable changes. I realized that it’s possible to feel compassion and concern for both livestock owners and a wild, young cougar trying to make a living in a hostile environment. I marveled at how the odd shape-shifting shadows during an eclipse bluntly remind us that we are space travelers scooting through the universe as passengers on a planet that isn’t stagnant in space or time. I wondered at the ability of our species to blithely live our lives in the path of natural disasters, whether hurricanes or earthquakes.

We spend a lot of time trying to maintain stability — trying to avoid or deny the inevitable changes in our lives and our environment and the inescapable physical decline in ourselves and our loved ones. However, I have come to appreciate that the point of forging a connection with the natural world is that it bluntly reminds us that we ought to spend our time understanding and adapting to change rather than avoiding or denying it.

Thankfully, the smoke subsided. It was time to emerge from the hole, clear my head of confounding thoughts and re-connect with nature. The returning rain feels familiar and reassuring, and autumn has already begun to rearrange the quality of the light and the air. The signal has been sent for osprey and summer songbirds to depart and for salmon and orcas to return.

Fall is the time to re-calibrate natural rhythms and plug back into the nature matrix. One way to do this is to reinvest in Vashon’s natural resources. The calendar for the coming month lists several opportunities for stewardship by trail-building, tree-planting and beach-surveying. Or you can check in on our fellow species by accompanying expert Audubon birders around Vashon for free and subscribing to Sound Action’s PodBlast to receive text alerts telling you where and when to see whales in Vashon’s waters.

Whale Watching

Get text alerts whenever whales are in Vashon’s waters. Subscribe for $20 per year at soundaction.org/podblast.

Report all local whale sightings and marine mammal strandings to Ann “Orca Annie” Stateler at the Vashon Hydrophone Project by calling 206-463-9041 or emailing vashonorcas@aol.com.

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