Seals and Whales and Community Visioning

Geology.com has provided this link to a you tube video of seal and whale sounds. Great pictures too. This reminds me that the whale watching season is about to begin. For me nothing is more fun than going to sea with a camera or binoculars and looking for great whales. I've had great tours from Boston Harbor and Plymouth, but prefer the Captain John's boats out of Plymouth because of the traffic free drive to the docks and the spectacular whaling luck I've had on the last two trips there. Here are three photos from the last trip.

 Humpback whales are known for their spectacular acrobatics. I had been on four watches before I saw this breaching behavior and it took me another trip to time the photo right. No one knows why a whale will jump out of the water and splash down dozens of times. Some believe it's to knock off barnacles. Since juvenile males tend to jump the most, some have suggested it might just be showing off or boredom due to a lack of video games.

I saw a lot of this behavior on the last trip also. The whale would roll on its side then smash its six to eight foot long flipper on the water. It's believed that this sends shock waves through the water to stun the small sand lances the whales love to feed on.

There's a better shot of this behavior on the video, but you can see inside the whale's mouth pretty well. These two had swum under a school of fish and blown bubbles in a ring to trap them. Then they opened their mouths and surfaced inside the bubble ring.

This Wednesday at 6:30 at Oakes Ames Memorial Hall town officials will update the community on the visioning plan that was initiated in 2007. You can find the 19 page plan here. It's interesting to see how well the town has done in already implementing many of the visions despite our challenging financial situation.