Seals: Britain’s largest land mammal

by Darren

I’ve watched grey seals at several locations around the UK coast but my favourites are a site on the Lincolnshire coast and the Farne Islands off of Northumbria. They’re Britain’s largest land mammal (although of course they do spend time in the water too) and with males weighing upwards of 60 stone with sharp teeth, they’re potentially dangerous if you don’t respect them.

I’m going to run a series of seal images over the next couple of days, and I’m going to start with this image of a cream coloured pup that I saw at Donna Nook in Lincolnshire two years ago.

The site is a fairly remote beach that is looked after during the breeding season by wardens from the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust. In November females come up on to the beach and give birth to a single creamy white pup. Four weeks later the pups are weaned and spend about a further month on the beach before going to sea alone. The females are rounded up into harems and fought over by the males, a spectacular sight although some of them can get vicious. Thick as their skin may be, it often gets torn in these brutal encounters.

You can see females and pups without walking too far as the Trust fence off a breeding area at the top of the beach but the fences make it difficult for photography. This doesn’t mean that the fences shouldn’t be there – it’s a crucial defence for both the seals and visitors as these animals are very vulnerable at this time and the females don’t like people interfering with their pups. The number of visitors is also an issue for photographers.

You can trek out onto the beach, a long but worthwhile walk across wet sand and some areas of standing water up to about 2 inches. The nearby RAF station use the beach as a bombing range during the week so it’s sometimes closed if there is stray ordinance left, but usually you can trek out about a mile and spend some windbeaten but exhilarating time with the colony.

I do get rather annoyed with some of the idiots who make the trek. They get too close for the seals, and for their own good. Last year I watched a photographer get ridiculously close to a large bull who barked and moved away. To anyone with a bit of common sense, that means it’s time to move away but this fool did it again. And again. And again. I was certain that he was going to get bitten at some point, and maybe he did after I left.

Protecting your camera equipment and yourself, getting the tide times right and behaving responsibly towards the seals are all important. That’s why this year I’m going to make my experience of the site available and run a couple of workshops up there. They’ll involve an early start, but if you want images of these wonderful animals, or even if you just want to come along to observe them and the spectacle of the rut, then this is for you.

I’ll publish details of exact dates and prices in a few days once we’ve been through some more images, but in the meantime if you’re interested then please drop me a line via. the contact form