jaw-dropping: pacific gray whales

Greetings, poetry people! I'm still not over the wonders of a trip to Oregon this past week, Number One of which was watching our younger kid graduate from Lewis and Clark College in Portland (shout-out Duncan!), and Number 3 of which was spending time with Jone Rush MacCulloch, who hosted us at her home in (yes, it is literally called) Happy Valley, OR, across the Willamette River) and getting my hands on her new book TILT. Both of these were expected wonders, and I don't think Jone will mind that I am placing her at Number Three, after the UNexpected wonder of seeing whales--at least three!-- along a favorite part of the Oregon coast, near Yachats.

I can't explain why, exploring the low tide pools full of green anemones, purple urchins and scarlet sea stars, why, watching the water boom, thump and thrash up from Thor's Well, why catching sight of--is it? could it be? YES IT IS! gray whales!--was so affecting, except that we didn't go looking for them. They were just there, doing their own thing, but honestly, appearing to wave at us now and then while cavorting, perhaps feeding, possibly with a calf!!! And when I watched with the excellent binoculars of my bird-watching son and his partner Zoë, I was just....flabbergasted at the actual size of the beast, somewhere around 40 feet and 40 tons, the ninth largest cetacean.

To go along with Tuesday's suprise, look what I just noticed at the bottom of my Windows screen!

It is Endangered Species Day, and Bing wants me to know that sperm whales are among those species.
The gray whale is also endangered, critically so until populations began to rise around 2018.

Here are a few more factoids that make us pretty certain we were seeing gray whales and not another type of creature. We kept seeing a fin pop out of the water, which was likely a pectoral fin as the whale turned on its side to feed.

"The whale feeds mainly on benthic crustaceans (such as amphipods and ghost shrimp),[107] which it eats by turning on its side and scooping up sediments from the sea floor. This unique feeding selection makes gray whales one of the most strongly reliant on coastal waters among baleen whales. It is classified as a baleen whale and has baleen, or whalebone, which acts like a sieve, to capture small sea animals, including amphipods taken in along with sand, water and other materials.


Gray whales migrate along the Oregon Coast twice a year. They head south to Baja in winter and again north to Alaska in the spring. In 2026, an estimated 13,000 gray whales are expected to make their way along the coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Spring is a great time for whale watching because the gray whale migration can be a bit closer on their return trip north, usually within a few miles from shore," Oregon Parks and Recreation Department Ranger Peter McBride said. "As we get later into the spring, we can sometimes see the mothers with calves in tow.”

North Pacific

Gray whale breaching

Gray whale spouting along shores of Yachats, Oregon 

Two Pacific Ocean populations are known to exist: one population that is very low, whose migratory route is presumed to be between the Sea of Okhotsk and southern Korea, and a larger population numbering about 27,000 individuals in the eastern Pacific, traveling between the waters off northernmost Alaska and Baja California Sur.[62] Mothers make this journey accompanied by their calves, usually hugging the shore in shallow kelp beds..."

Here's my new definito poem about the amazing wonder of being in community with another of the beings who shares our Earthly home.

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Jaw-Dropping

                    A disturbance on the surface,
unusual movement in the never-ending movement
                              of the waves---
a humped back? a fin? was that a head ahead?---
                    and just when you think you didn't see it,     a spout!
                                                                                                                   a spray!  a signal
from one of the most mega of beasts:                                 WE ARE HERE.
                    WELCOME TO OUR DAILY, WHALEY LIFE.

This is no cartoon, no blubber blue sticker of a whale
                                                                                     on your water bottle.
This is the real deal, double blowholes, dark skin marked and mottled,
                                       bubbled with barnacles, rolling around in
                                  the tub of the close ocean.              We are flabbergasted.

draft HM 2026
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Thanks to our host Patricia at Reverie for rounding us up today, and I'll offer my review of TILT in an upcoming post!