Whales and a Razorbill, and More Canna Puffins

I’ve been looking at this photo of a Razorbill for quite a while. This is the only photo I managed to take of one. Looking at others, I can see a resemblance to Puffins; they have similar webbed feet and a small, stocky stature. But instead of a colorful bill and tearful eyes, they are dressed all in black, with a smart stripe or two.

They are a species of auk, and Audubon’s guide says they are likely the closest living relative of the flightless Great Auk, hunted to extinction for museum specimens in the mid-1800s.

Hopefully Razorbills will fare better.

I can’t tell if they are “clumsy fliers” like Puffins; I find that humorous for humans to say, when we can’t fly at all. The Puffins on the Isle of Canna seemed to manage just fine.

There are few inhabitants on Canna year-round, and it is isolated from the mainland, reachable only by boat. According to Wikipedia, the island has been inhabited since neolithic times, and there are stone circles, cellars, standing stones, and a ring fort on the island, as well as a castle from later periods. I hope to explore someday.

The neolithic fascinates me because we know so little; before the advent of writing, which seems to have come about to tally grain stores in Sumeria, we recorded our passing with stelae—decorated stone pillars—and cave paintings. James C. Scott writes in Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, that humans domesticated cattle, but grain domesticated us; we were nomadic pastoralists, hunter-gatherers, and part-time agriculturalists who planted some seed and returned to harvest it. Once grain was cultivated, kings could tally it, tax it, store it as wealth, and enslave serfs to grow endless sheaves to fill their coffers, and they do so to this day.

I’m glad we have modern medicine and I do believe, that despite all the horrors in the world, we are still doing better; if you need reminding, Sam Matey’s newsletter The Weekly Anthropocene is a good read.

If you feel the dread coming on, talk to your friends. Reach out. I’m sure they’ll be grateful to hear from you. While the internet allows us to be afflicted by videos of awful things from far away, and to read the hateful blatherings of strangers, it also allows us to reach out to people who care about us any time of day or night. To give them something that will make them smile when they find it.

Those are porpoises and maybe a minke whale, that we saw on our trip out to Canna. If seeing a cetacean doesn’t make you smile, consult a physician.