In the kelp bed floating outside my window, a hydrophone dan gles downįeet into the water of Cramer Passage. I press the record button on my tape machine and note the time and date i n the sound log.

I trundle downstairs in stocking feet, put my ear to the hydro phone speaker, and hear Tsitika calling to her children. I wake from one of these dreams and find it hasn'tīeen a dream at aU. On a good night it's the exquisite dialect specific to the fami l y of the fifty-four year-old matriarch Tsitika, a series of rippling harmonics so perfect it imparts a deep sense of peace in me, like a shuddering sigh. Most times I can make out which pod is calling-the sisters, transients, G clan, or any of a dozen other orcas I've spent nearly a quarter of a century listening to. They start off distant like the sound of wind in the trees but gradually pick up to the ISBN 4-2 Text design by Holly Johnson Manuf:lctllTl�d 111 the Ullltt''d Starl'S of Arneriu FiN Edition: M.l) 2()02 Library of Congress Cat:lloglllg-in-Pllblic:ltion Data is available from the publisher upon request. Ballantine and colophon are registered tradel1l:lrks of R. Published in the United States by The UalLmtinc Pllbhshing GroIlP, a division of R mdOIll House, Inc., New York, and Sill111[t lJtcoll�ly in Canada by R l11dom Home of Call:lcb Limited, Toronto. LI STENING TO WHALES What theOrcas Have Taught UsĪ ilallaminc Book Published by The ilalbntine Publishing Group Copyright I© 2002 by All�xa]](lra Hubbard-Monon All nghts reserved under International and Pall-American CopYright COllvemions.

Listening to whales alexandra morton