A whale of a tail

Yesterday evening was so nice we decided to take Safi on a mission to find the whale tails we've so often seen whilst driving on I-89. We had a good idea where they were so it wasn't long before we happened upon 'Reverence'...

Reverence is a sculpture created by Jim Sardonis in 1989. The sculpture depicts two tails of whales "diving" into a sea of grass and is meant to symbolize the fragility of the planet. The tails were made from 36 tons of African black granite and stand 12-13 feet tall. The sculpture was originally commissioned by British metals trader David Threlkeld, who was then a resident of Randolph, Vermont.

The evening sun behind the sculpture made for some great silhouette shots... tho' we couldn't get that blackbird to budge from the whale tail furthest to the right!

The Whale Tails are more than just fanciful. Fossils of marine invertebrates found in the Champlain Valley reveal that Vermont was underwater as well during the Paleozoic Era, more than 300 million years ago.

• The last glacier melted away about 12,500 years ago, and the sea poured in. This inland sea was inhabited by many of the animals that inhabit the North Atlantic today, including mollusks, sea urchins, squid, herring, cod, salmon, seals, and belugas.
• In 1849, while constructing a railroad, workmen uncovered the bones of a beluga whale in a swampy area in Charlotte, VT. The fossil beluga is housed in the Perkins Museum at UVM.
• By about 10,000 years ago, the Champlain Valley had risen above sea level. The Valley’s waters drained northward into the St. Lawrence River, which flows north of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.
• Over 20 fossils of ancient beluga whales have been found around Lake Champlain.

Safi was quite oblivious to the whale tails diving around her and enjoyed racing around the grassy trails instead. She took a little breather before making a beeline for the nearest pond... you just can't keep her out of the water these days!