Outdoor Monday

One of Silas & Levi's favorite books is called  The Orphan Seal, it tells the story of an abandoned baby seal that was rescued, nursed back to health, and later returned to the ocean.   Today, we were lucky enough to watch that story come to life when the University of New England's Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center released two juvenile and two adult male harp seals on a beach in Biddeford.

The boys were very impressed with this whole thing, and so was I.  The seals were just adorable and it was such a treat to watch them make they way back into the ocean.  Harp seals live in chilly waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, so from here they will swim north to Canada.

A young harp seal.

An adult male harp seal.

Almost there.

These are the seals that are often hunted as babies for their beautiful, fluffy, white fur.  Can you imagine clubbing such a cute animal?

 

After getting in the water, the seals gave a couple long looks back toward shore, as if saying goodbye, then swam away.  We watched until they were gone, then spent the rest of the beautiful afternoon on the beach.

Levi, Si & Coco.

These little creatures were all over the beach, we think they are krill:

Silas & Levi spent a lot of time with a dead sea worm.

 

It is always a good time at the beach, but today was really good!

Comments

[Gwynneth Beasley]

I've read a few things lately that suggest today's emphasis on environmental education gives our kids a sense of despair and hopelessness about the state of the world. Reading books like that and taking them to a release like that is the perfect way to stop that happening. People power!

[Aunt Suz]

I loved seeing the release of the seals. Last summer Opa and I saw about 200 seals on a beach on Cape Cod. After seeing the dead sea worm, guess that finishes me on going into the ocean, darn!
Nana

[Michelle]

Marsha - My sister Karen used to be deathly afraid of deer heads (the stuffed trophy type) due to some childhood experience with them, but in the last few years she has been able to get over her fear and can now enter a room with a deer head.  I think Silas Levi can help you overcome this fear of worms!

[Mark]

I love see worms. C'mon Nana, they are cool.

[Michelle]

I can totally understand how kids develop that sense of despair - Im starting to feel it myself, especially when listening to the news of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  I can see how quickly they pick up on the bad news; we went to a turtle class at a local wildlife center last week learned all kinds of great info about turtles, but what Silas is talking about most after that class is plastic grocery bags and how they kill so many sea turtles (they apparently look a lot like jellyfish in the water so the turtles eat them the bags become impacted in their gut).  It is great that he is now trying to pick bags up whenever we see them as litter outdoors, but so sad too that he must be burdened with that information.  I try to shield my boys as much as I can from the messy side of what is happening to the earth and show them the wonders of nature, but the bad news often slips in.  But, yesterdays experience was very uplifting and we just have to keep focusing on the good.

Thanks for commenting!

[Aunt Suz]

I would love to be able to get over my fear but if Silas and Levi ever approached me with a worm, I would run so fast. It is such a silly fear but I can tell you, it's real. I guess it was good I never transfered my fear to my children.

Nana