Porpoises, sunfish, and seals oh my!
Something I surprisingly didn’t consider when prepping for this four-month Monhegan adventure is the unique gamut of wildlife. Sure I figured I’d find your average sea gull and perhaps some interesting aquatic creatures, but not once did a petable 500-pound Ocean Sun Fish cross my mind (I will explain shortly).
Although there aren’t too many furry mammals that frequent the island––that is unless we’re talking about lobstermen––Monhegan was once home to a vast population of deer. That all ended via mass execution in 2008 due to the threat of Lyme disease. Apparently one guy finished the job on his own, hunting down each and every one. Talk about a mission. Anyway the island’s big draw for animal connoisseurs now are the birds, of which there are 200 species. It’s funny, I can fit the Monhegan House guests into three categories based on their visible belongings in their rooms: the painters who are the messiest (but my personal favorite), they always have half-finished canvases drying out and endless paintbrushes/pencils/pastels strewn about; then there are the hikers who track in the most sand and mud, they’ve always got their wet shoes drying in the windows and walking sticks leaned against the wall; and finally we have the birders whose rooms are occupied by binoculars, maps, and literature about Monhegan wildlife.
My top bird at the moment is the Wild Pheasant (which may or may not be an unpopular opinion). Actually I should clarify, I only like the female pheasants. They have this beautiful collection of colored feathers in red, black, brown, and white. The only downside is the noise they make which could be described as neither a squawk nor screech, but some nightmarish sound in between the two. They also move in an odd and clumsy way. Unlike the graceful sea gull landings and gannet soars, pheasants sort of loudly strut around and hop while flapping their wings in a dramatic way when startled.
Coming as no surprise to anyone I’m sure, fish are a whole other level of variety on Monhegan as well. There’s everything from mackerel, to cod, to haddock, tuna, pollock and a gazillion others that I care not to learn the names of (not too big into fishing unfortunately). If you stick around long enough around the wharf you might be lucky and catch sight of a freshly caught tuna coming from one of the boats. I saw one the other day which is the first time I think I’ve ever seen a full tuna in the flesh and it was pretty staggering to comprehend just how big they really are––and this one was on the smaller end of things.
Now to get into this ocean sun fish business.
On my last day off (well actually it wasn’t my day off, but since it was McKenna’s I sped through work as fast as I could to emulate one for myself by noon), we went kayaking around Manana and the harbor. The weather was an eerie fog which made the dark waters really pop against the hazy white sky. As we rowed along, someone noticed a large fin sticking out of the water, slowly bobbing around. Naturally my first instinct was that this had to be some breed of hungry shark, but come to find out it was just your average friendly five-foot long ocean sun fish!
The thing was so incredibly strange-looking, but I can’t even describe how surreal it was to be floating right next to it. Ocean sun fish are fairly common around Monhegan waters, and they move at a snail's pace close to the surface, making them less of a species to be feared by inexperienced kayakers such as myself. After hanging out around the creature for a few minutes, I even got to pet it a few times. Its skin felt soft yet scratchy, almost like a cat’s tongue. It also had these massive eyes and a gaping mouth––certainly not the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen, but the absolute coolest nonetheless. The day turned out to entail more and more aquatic animal sightings as we kayaked through schools of shiny mackerel and came into close range with some porpoises.
Aside from the obvious lobsters, crabs, and squid, I’ve noticed that the island houses a bunch of insects (though sometimes it feels like exclusively mosquitos). There are lots of butterflies, fireflies, spiders, moths, grasshoppers, bees, and the bane of my existence at the beach: weird “little shrimpy bugs” (something tells me they have a more scientific-sounding real name, but that’s what McKenna and I have coined them for the time being).
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