Saturday night, we played board games and Texas Hold 'Em. I ran out of money first because no matter how often I got three queens, Joe or James would have three kings or Aces.
Then we converted the pool table to a ping pong table, where I ruled. We used to have a ping pong table in Illinois, and we played all the time, so I'm a little bit good, but no Forrest Gump.
After that, Joe found a BBC series in 4k called The Hunt, so we watched a few episodes.
From the moment the first animal appeared on camera, I was in complete, slack-jawed awe. Wildlife photography has virtually exploded in quality since Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom!
I am now sure animals share human's nobler qualities, but their brains fire different synapses, and as a result, we fail to recognize the majesty, loyalty and nobility they live every day.
Surviving in the wild is not easy. Animals in the wild may seem as though they have survived by happenstance, or by the evolutionist motto, "only the strongest survive." That may not be always true, as it also takes a whole lot of determination, cleverness, and sometimes, parental influence.
Humans tell the story of how they've survived difficulty through words, scars, or the wrinkles that come with enduring to old age.
But now, through progression of technology and the magic of the camera, we are seeing the wonderfully complex and seemingly divinely-led, lives animals lead. This technology has brought us out of the zoo, where you were extremely lucky if a lion got up from its nap for a quick scratch before retreating further into the shade.
Now we can see the fascinating and savage intricacy of survival. And the lengths animals will go to to survive. ALL animals. When faced with adverse circumstances, they absolutely will not give up, no matter what the odds, and no matter how tired they are, They will keep pushing until they succeed, or until they die.
For example, we watched from above as a mother humpback whale and her newborn baby were swimming toward a place where they could feed. Then, with a burst of ominous music, the camera darts behind to focus on a small pod of Orcas, trucking through the water like highly focused, determined, and smugly confident missiles.
Orcas hunt in packs, and they're extremely efficient and proficient predators. They tried to wash the baby off the mother's back by creating a coordinated sequence of splashing. It worked, and the Orcas looked like they were gonna feast on the baby.
All hope seemed lost. The killer whales closed in on the baby with a speed that made my heart race. I wanted the baby to survive. But it didn't look good. In fact, it looked like the Orcas were putting on their bibs.
Then, triumphant music, and David Attenborough says, "Just then, an adult male comes to the rescue." And I think James and Joe cheered with me. All I could think was, “That whale is amazing—a good Samaritan, coming from nowhere to help another of its kind in need.” We think of animals as instinctively selfish, with no true free will, only deep rooted instinct that forces them to act out their primal urges.
But this was clearly no selfish act. It was selfless, dangerous, and noble. That male humpback didn’t have to jump into the fray. Did he hear the mother’s cries of distress? Could he feel or sense the baby’s terror? And most importantly, after hearing the distress call, did he feel an emotion that prompted him to act?
Could it have just been a fluke? A rare animal hero?
Nope. Because then another humpback male joins in to flank the momma and baby. I couldn't believe it. These male whales came in to help, by their own free will, and at risk to their own lives. As humans, we hear of people sacrificing their lives for our country, or our loved ones. Sometimes we hear stories about pets who have saved lives, but we don't often hear about these heroes in the untamed wild.
STOP.
All I could say was “Wow,” and then of course, I had to voice what I was thinking so Joe and James didn't miss what those whales had just done.
“Those whales just willingly put themselves in danger for that momma and baby. They chose to help that momma and baby escape.”
The males succeeded in shooing the Orcas away, and when they thought the danger was past, the male humpbacks left the female and baby to go back to whatever they were doing. Swimming, probably.
Which was a mistake, something we humans are very familiar with.
The killer whales didn’t swim far away—just far enough to wait for another opportunity. When the male humpbacks left, they returned with a vengeance, and easily succeeded in separating the baby from it’s mother. They pushed the baby deep underwater, drowning it.
A stunned silence filled the room, the noise deafening in our own hearts. We thought this story would have a happy ending.
But that’s reality, and the show did a really good job portraying that often gut-wrenching truth--even after a heroic deed, there’s the chance of failure. And the ending is really neither happy, nor unhappy, but survival.
The next day we went Best Buy and James bought a 4K Blu-ray player, and the 4k version of Planet Earth II.
It was no less amazing than the episodes of The Hunt we’d watched the day before.
Watching never seen before footage of animals doing their thing gave me a few more STOP moments.
Like the herd of musk oxen that form a ring around their young and face outward toward a hungry pack of arctic wolves. It reminded me of the stagecoach rings on the plains in more hostile times.
And then there was the Guillemots that lay their eggs on steep cliff ledges, and once a year, there’s a mass exodus of chicks taking their very first flight, and it’s a doozy. Their first flight starts with a leap of faith off a high cliff, and they’ve got to glide all the way to the relative safety of the sea, almost 1000 feet away.
But what’s more amazing to me, is that the chick’s dad jumps into flight immediately after the baby, and guides him//her by gentle nudges and encouraging squawks until they reach the sea. Many chicks make it to the sea, if somewhat ungracefully. Probably how I'd land with a couple of head over heels bounces.
Some don’t, and predators are waiting for the chance to grab an easy meal. But even if the chick crash lands, the dad is there with it, and is sometimes able to fend off a fox or larger raptor. However, the fox has babies to feed also, and to ensure a viable balance, their needs must be met, too.
But it’s amazing to realize that those chicks never take their first flight alone.
I can’t even begin to describe the emotions I feel when seeing these things for the first time.
I found myself wishing I was the cameraman. Or wishing I was doing the field research that had to be done beforehand so the cameramen would know where to go. It’s a white-hot, burning desire, a desire etched deep inn my soul, yet is unattainable at present due to circumstance. So, the answer I need to find is how to change my circumstances to fulfill this lifelong desire.
I know it can be done. I know there’s a way. It’s there, and I just have to find it. I have the will, and I’ll find the way. My enemy is, and will always be, forgetting that heart-rooted desire in the daily monotony of life.
Anyway, this raw, sometimes savage, wild world will always have a mysterious and profoundly inspiring affect on me. It's a feeling beyond words, a feeling that I can only express with wide, wonder-filled eyes, or a smile--the smile you smile when you see something so amazing, so beautiful, so naturally intricate and inspirational, that your most primal first instinct allows nothing less.
And that's why I call my blog My Ever Wonderland.
I felt the same way the first time I watched Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I was at a loss for words and I'm pretty sure it was in high definition.
Definitely a STOP please make it STOP moment.
Mark