Spent the morning with 'the gang', the non-breeders. It's funny, I don't know why they don't stay at sea, it gets pretty boring here after a few weeks. Nothing much to do but scratch your arse and read books. Anyway, there's a long standing tradition that the non breeders have to do something for the 'newbies'. The newbies are those graduate students, fresh off the boat, here for some 'original' research into us lot.
We came up with a few ideas but we're all going to sit on it a while and see what else we might come up with, there's no rush after all. Last year was great! The 'gang' did the conga every day, at exactly the same time, all the way around the outside of the rookery. After about 4 weeks half the rookery was snaking around kicking their legs out! They nearly wet themselves at 'Nature' and 'Scientific American' when the newbie submitted his paper about 'previously unseen mating rituals of emperor penguins'
Anyway I promised you dolphins and whales.
So, did you all go "ah bless" at the tale of Moko and the two whales? Well I didn't! I'm not saying that it wasn't all a bit cutesy but from my perspective it's just another two predators out there. We have enough trouble as it is with Mr Dolphin's cousin, Orca, round here to feel any kind of sentiment for either dolphins or sperm whales. Even if the whales are pygmy ones, they're still big enough to bite your bum off. Rorquals, fine. I like rorquals. But the toothed whales? Too much like orcas for my liking.
Talking of Orcas, Havelock tells a great story about how some killer whales who were wave hunting him and a seal on an ice floe - they swim around creating waves so you end up getting washed off the floe by the waves - washed them both off only to put them back on the floe and do it again. They weren't hunting, they were teaching the youngsters how do it, he said. Havelock says it was the luckiest day of his life and he's never, ever having lunch with a seal again!
But little Moko got me thinking. A big part of the story centred around the dolphin's 'conversation' with the parent whale - almost like it was saying 'follow me'. And oh, how you'd love that to be true!
Humans are social animals, they don't like being alone and, like penguins, seek out others at every opportunity. That's all fine and dandy and to be expected. So why on earth do they have this raging desire, as a species, to want to socialise with other animals? And they do! A big part of the dolphin's attraction is that they are intelligent, seem to have ways of communicating with each other and humans think they sense a 'culture' there too. Humans would just love to get in the water and talk to the dolphins. Same with ET. Obsessed with communicating with aliens, you are. Hands up if you're part of the SETI network! Why?
What on earth would you say to a dolphin? What possible topics might you have in common? Sea water's wet and salty? Having a shag is nice? That's about as far as it goes, unless you're into sushi without wasabe. What possible meaning could the transubstantiation have for a dolphin? How would you start explaining the current economic downturn in the US? What would Shakespear mean to a dolphin?
(Actually, nothing. I know. I tried discussing Macbeth with a bottle nose once, he just told me to push off or he'd bite my bum)
Finally finished 'Rising' by Norman Davies, about the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 - and that's the Home Army rising not the one in the ghetto the year before. Just as well really, because Shaky in front was starting to get a bit tetchy, 650 pages is a lot of weight on your back. Need to find something slimmer for the next one. Aristophanes, perhaps?
Ah well, it's Saturday tomorrow so I can have a bit of a 'stand in'. Maybe get Havelock to mind the egg and go for a bit of a bellytoboggan down the bluff, we'll see.
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