Educational Post: Blue Planet (more Penguins and Whales)

The other night, (or shall I say morning?, because it was like 3 or 4 in the morning).... Lets start again... If I go to bed uber late (or uber early) I usually turn the TV on, to watch "10 or 15 minutes" until my eyes get tired. It so happens, tho, that whatever it is I find is so interesting that I stay up until the show is over. That's what happened this night (morning). I turn the TV on when I lay in bed, I flip the channel into Animal Planet, knowing that for sure something interesting for "the insomniac" is going to be on, but also knowing that if I do, I will stay up, ALSO knowing that if I stay up I won't wake up the next day as rested as I should. But, masochism is a very complicated trait of the human race... So, I turn the TV on, and there it is: BLUE PLANET, a critically acclaimed documentary series about ocean life in our planet (duh, it's not going to be Jupiter).

Penguins
(I know, I'm obssessed by now with penguins, but I have to talk about them again, but if u are bored of penguins, just skip this parragraph and scroll down to the "Whales")
As I watch they're talking about penguins, and about the hardships of a particular species that has to ride the waves so they can get to the top of a very steep cliff, so they can go to their breeding grounds. And you see the little birds struggling in the tempestous waves, you see their small, black wings (that look like fins of course) flailing on the surface, being engulfed by the raging foam of the waves, and then, they fall so hard on the rock (which, bytheway, is not a flat, smooth rock, but very pointy and rough, my mind could only imagine the quatity of penguins being impailed by them). Seeing this was really really very moving. They do it because instinct tells them to, and they don't see the dangers, or maybe the do see it, but they still go against all the odds.

Whales
But, the most exciting, and moving thing I saw that night was the chase of a grey whale. Grey Whales are the second or third biggest animal in the world, only the Blue Whale is larger. So, who or what is chasing the gray whales? Man? Nope. It is a pack, or a school, or a group of orcas, killer whales. Dang. Killer whales are called like that because they're the only whale that hunt, to eat, while the other whales just eat krill or plankton. So, the narrator says: "the gray whales follow strict migration roads... the killer whales know this, and they are on the hunt. The gray whales don't know they have been spotted". And while he narrates, you see the mother gray whale, with her calf, swiming placcidly inches from the surface of the ocean, without even making waves, while, on the other hand, you see the orcas going up and down on the water, with that distictive dorsal fin (like sharks), and their black and white skin breaking the blue of the ocean, swimming rapidly, even almost rabidly. And so, the Grey whales finally see the danger.

A grey whale can easily outrun an Orca, because they are three or four times larger, but, calfs are not as strong. So you see the orcas swimming faster, and you can see the difference cause the water on top of them swirls and splashes. But, when the calf gets exhausted, the mother has to stop and fight. And, believe me, this fight was VERY VERY intense. You would say, "No, a fight in the water cannot possibly be interesting, let alone nerve-racking, nothing like a good boxing match". But you may be wrong. I don't know how the people of Blue Planet did this, but the editing, the narration, and the action in the water was super exciting:

The narrator goes, "the killer whales circle the mother and her calf, and try to separate them. The orcas push themselfs between mother and calf, taking turns; and in the meantime, exhausting the young whale". And you see this huge black orcas swimming between the two gray bodies, you see the fins of the grays, the foam in the water, the struggle underneath... "The orcas have to be careful, the mother can inflict great damage with her tail... The orcas finally succed". And now, the orcas litterally jump over the small gray whale, and you see the huge skins trembling, you can even imagine the profound sound it would make. And I say out loud: "they're trying to drown it"; that's when the narrator says: "the orcas jump over the young calf, trying to submerge it, they want to drown it". And then you can see the large gray whale going under the small whale trying to get it to the surface so it can breath, while the orcas are on top of the small whale, pushing down, AND while you see the poor calf upside-down in between them, clearly suffering, clearly exhausted, I could even imagine him rolling his eyes because he can't breath. And then, out of the blue, "one orca takes a bite". And OH GOSH, you can SEE the bite on the small calf's fin, it looked as if you took a bite off of a sandwich, a clear half moon on the fin, and then, the blood. And, finally, the orcas drown the baby whale.

The mother has to go on, without her young, whom she kept inside for 18 months? (I forget the whale's time of gestation), and after birth for another 14 months, and for whom she had to stay behind from the rest of the whales...

During the fight, I imagined the hours it took the orcas to get this baby whale, and that's when the narrator says: "After six long hours of work, the orcas only ate the lower jaw and the tonge of the calf, abandoning the carcass floating on the ocean surface". Six hours!!! Just eat less that a quart of the whale! Natually, the carcass won't go to waste, it would soon sink and down there there are others who will rejoyce with that free bounty...

Nature sure is cruel. But amazing.

Blue Planet is on Wednesdays, at 9:00, I think, on Animal Planet, and a rerun during the late (or early) hours of the night.


(Love is instinctive). (Unexplainable)