Plainfin Midshipman Documentary

David Attenborough Narrates the Eerie Mating Call of This Charismatic Fish

HanneRose leading film crew member Tavish safely ashore. Photo Mark Rose

Two years ago, the Plainfin Midshipman attracted a film crew from Canada to our beach here on Dabob Bay. The crew filmed for eighteen days and returned the following year to film again. They estimated more than three thousand midshipmen nestled beneath the rocks along our shore. The collective hum can be loud enough to drown out human speech. These are just one of the species portrayed and recorded in the documentary series “Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough” now out on Netflix.

For more background, including profiles of the brilliant film crew, see my earlier post: Plainfin Midshipman Ready for their Closeup.

Weeks of filming and recording here on the beach below my birthplace and home translate into a few minutes of screen time. It’s magical to find out what those strange sounds meant and how those strange fish lived when we Pedersen kids walked the beaches as we grew up. It’s also amazing to see the rocks and cliffs and trees just below my cabin and tent and now know secrets beneath the surface too.

I strongly recommend everyone watch this documentary!

And thank you, Peter Bahls from the Northwest Watershed Institute, for directing the crew our way. Mark and I attended a celebration hosted by NWI for an update of their incredible success and future plans for preserving Dabob Bay’s forests and shorelines. Nature needs its advocates, and Peter and his colleagues are heroes. While I’m at it, please hop over to NWI’s site and donate, because every tax-deductible penny goes into preserving wildlife and shoreline habitat in perpetuity.

While I’m at it: The image below stands. Let’s go. Donate. Volunteer. March. And guess what: It’s still OK to smile and laugh. Let’s keep each other afloat.