A Whaley Good Time is part of the #WBOYC link party, a regular link up for bloggers discussing their word of the year or what has been on their calendar for the month.
A Whaley Good Time!
As you may be aware at the start of each year I pick a word of the year to focus on and explore. This year I ended up with two words – CREATE and NATURE.
Most of my previous posts have been focused on the word Create. You can check them out here:
Why you need to be creative in midlife
But Nature is always operating in the background for me. I try to have daily walks in nature, whether that’s in the mountains where I live or down on the beach.
This month though I purposefully took a day out to experience nature – a whale watching trip off the coast of Australia.
I had a Whaley Good Time!
(sorry for that bad play on words, but I couldn’t resist)
On the East Coast of Australia we are blessed by an annual migration of hump back whales who travel up from Antarctica to the Northern warm waters of Australia to birth their calves. The migration starts in May/June and finishes around October/November.
When the whales are on their return journey they are accompanied by their beautiful new babies (calves).
Throughout this four to six month migration the mothers (and males who also travel up to mate with females) do not feed! They have to rely on their blubber (fat) reserves built up from eating crill in the Antarctic.
At the start of the trip we quickly came across a mother and baby cruising down the coast. There was some fin slapping but not much other action.
On the whales return journey, the mother whale has to coach her calf to swim ahead of her, learn to breach (jump) from the water and tail slap. These activities will all make the calf stronger and more independent. This usually means whale watchers get to see some of this action.
We moved onto another mother and calf group but again there was little activity going on. I thought we were going to be unlucky and not see any breaching but then the last mother and calf we found put on a wonderful performance.
Many indigenous cultures associate animals with spirits which provide guidance and omens to humans. Of course if you Google whale symbolism there are a multitude of websites all proclaiming different meanings.
I think I have always associated whales with wisdom, calmness, and communication, synonymous with their whale song. One website I dipped in did claim whales are associated with creativity, so I might take that as it fits nicely with my other word of the year Create.
Birds, birds and more birds
My other big interaction with nature this month has been birds. I literally had three different types of bird come into our house this week – a cheeky butcher bird, a King Parrot and a tiny little swift. Trying to shoo the swift out was the hardest one!
Birds again have many different symbolisms attached to them. For some people birds in the house are seen as a bad omen such as an imminent death.
Most cultures however see birds as a positive omen. They represent freedom, hope, and connection to the spiritual world such as in mythology and fairytales.
I’ve also had birds in my life at night – I regularly hear an Australian Boobook (great name hey?) which is Australia’s smallest and most common owl. You can listen here
How nature has influenced me this month:
- Seeing the mother hump back whale caring for her baby calf reminded me of my gratitude for being a mother and the bond that a mother feels to her children.
- I’m also grateful for my whole family unit. It’s heartbreaking to hear about others who have not be able to experience close family ties.
- I’m grateful for my home and the environment in which I live. I have immediate access to nature all around me, everyday. Again, I’m very aware this is not always possible for others.
- Nature provides the gift of peace and calmness if we take a moment to observe and live in the moment.
On a creative front:
I’ve managed to source some suitable silk for my silk painting project. I now need to get cracking making some frames and creating designs.
I’ve also been creating a new meal planning guide to upload to my Etsy Store. Hopefully, I will be in a position to share this with you soon.
Here’s a little taster:
Let me know in the comments if you have had any unexpected or planned interactions with nature this month.
Don’t forget to check out the other posts in this link party HERE . Thanks to my fellow bloggers for setting up this link party.
Donna from Retirement Reflections
Sue from Women Living Well after 50
By the way if you would like regular updates from me, you can sign up for my newsletter HERE
Those whales would be so good to see Janine! I like the way you’ve tied your words Nature and Create into your post and thanks for joining in for #WBOYC. The birds are lovely and well done on creating the sample meal planning sheet on ETSY, very clever!
Thank you Debbie – it did feel very special to see the whales.
The meal planner isn’t quite finished but I’m getting closer. Family seem to interrupt my plans
Seeing whales is always awesome and the bond between mother and calf is beautiful. I haven’t managed to get on the water with them this season, but have been fortunate to sight a few from the beach. Magnificent creatures that make you feel small, but in a good way. I’m loving seeing the baby birds out at the moment – the plover down at Kangaroo Corner, the osprey chicks at Mooloolaba spit, the duck family down at the lake.
We are very fortunate that we can usually see them from the coast here in Australia without having to go out on the water. They are such magical animals.
I think most people can observe birds wherever they live in the world. Yesterday we had a family of baby myna birds sunbathing on our ledge – very cute!
These are awesome whale sightings. Thank you for sharing them with us. How can they not make us all smile? <3
Ah thank you – they’re not the best photos – only taken with my old phone. I decided against taking my big old fashioned camera so I could spend more time just enjoying watching the whales.