Lazy Sunday CXX: Animals, Part II

For some reason that even I can’t even explain, I have suddenly become a big squish when it comes to animals.  For years I just didn’t care about them all that much:  sure, they’re sometimes good companions, but they’re kind of annoying and expensive—like kids, but they can’t grow up to take care of you when you’re inching towards the grave in a senile fog.

Now—inexplicably!—I’ve been torturing myself by looking at animals online at my county’s animal shelter (my lizard hindbrain wants to adopt this guy, but my pragmatic rationality forbids it).  Am I becoming the male equivalent of a thirty-three-year old single white female, trying to fill the void of a childless existent with a canine substitute?

I don’t think so.  I suspect this sudden onset of Francis of Assisi-esque animal loving is because I’ve blessed to spend the last year around really good dogs.  Who wouldn’t want a buddy to loaf around with, and to take on long walks?

That has apparently translated to caring for our slimier friends of the more aquatic variety, too.  I did, after all, make an attempt at building a makeshift frog pond for all the croakers hanging around my house.

That said, this 120th edition of Lazy Sunday is going to the dogs—and whales, pigeons, and frogs:

  • Hard to Swallow” – The story of man spit from the mouth of a humpback whale, which I then relate (predictably) to the remarkable—and, seriously weird—story of Jonah.
  • Release the Pigeons” – 5000—maybe more!—British racing pigeons disappeared during a recent race.  I’m not sure what is the bigger mystery:  how the pigeons disappeared, or how racing pigeons become a niche sport in Great Britain.
  • Adventures in Gardening: Building a Frog Pond” – This post details how I played around in the mud in my garden, and built my first attempt at Frogtopia.  It includes lots of pictures, and even a picture of a German shepherd and me playing with a toad.

That’s it for this extra-fluffy edition of Lazy SundayFind yourself a shelter pet!

Oh—and Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Tip The Portly Politico:  Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.

***NOTEThis link is NOT a subscription to my SubscribeStar Page; it is for a one-time donation/tip via PayPal. To subscribe to my SubscribeStar page, use this URL:   https://subscribestar.com/the-portly-politico***

Hard to Swallow

A big H/T to Neo at Nebraska Energy Observer for the inspiration for today’s post:  in his latest edition of Sunday Funnies (“Sunday Funnies:  Juneteenth & Other Things“), Neo includes a tabloid-style headline that reads, “I Was Nearly Krilled!: Lobster diver says he was swallowed by humpback whale.”  The pun “krilled’ is circled in orange.

I looked it up, and it’s a real story:  Michael Packard, a fifty-six-year old lobster diver from Massachusetts, was briefly trapped in the mouth of a massive humpback whale.  According to Packard, he was in the mouth of the great beast for about thirty seconds, before the creature surfaced, shook its head back and forth, and spit Packard into the air.

Here is the relevant excerpt of Packard’s account, as quoted at NPR.org:

Packard told WBZ-TV that he was about 45 feet down in the water when he suddenly felt “this huge bump and everything went dark.” He initially feared he had been attacked by a shark.

“Then I felt around, and I realized there was no teeth and I had felt, really, no great pain,” he said. “And then I realized, ‘Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth. I’m in a whale’s mouth, and he’s trying to swallow me.’ “

Packard was still wearing his scuba gear and breathing apparatus inside the whale’s mouth, which he said was completely dark. Fearing he wouldn’t make it out alive, he thought about his wife and sons.

After about half a minute, the whale rose to the water’s surface and began shaking its head from side to side.

“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water,” Packard recalled. “And I was free, and I just floated there … I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I got out of that.”

The story sounds incredible—and, according to whale experts, the odds of it happening are extremely rare—but it is within the realm of possibility.  Humpback whales lack teeth, and instead filter feed through baleen, long, hair-like “teeth” that filter out sea water and trap small prey, like shrimp and krill, inside.  Humpback whales often feed using lunge feeding, during which the whales “open their mouths, accelerate and ‘take in 10 SUVs worth of water and fish and then everything else,'” according to Iain Kerr, quoted in the same NPR piece.

Apparently, Packard just happened to be swimming in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the great whale accidentally sucked him up with tiny sea critters.

Read More »