Common Seal

I have just recieved a report, via the Sussex Wildlife Trust, of a seal that was spotted in the River Ouse just above Lewes. The seal was seen on Wednesday the 19th November at about 4.00pm. I spoke to the lady who made the observation and it appears likely that the seal is a common seal and quite possibly the seal reported earlier on Peacehaven beach.

More on the Peacehaven Seal

Further information about the seal spotted off Peacehaven East Sussex by Bill Carter. Bill also took the great pics as well.

Bills first sighting of the seal was at 2pm as he was cycling along the Peacehaven undercliff promenade on 31st October. It was a warm sunny afternoon with calm sea and the seal was basking on the groin as you can see below.



It seemed to be in good health and condition, with no sign of injury or distress. Bill took several pictures with a long lens from the promenade, the seal simply turned to keep a wary eye on him, making no attempt to go into the water. (see below)

Seals have an oily tear that runs across their eye to protect it against the salt water. This makes them look like they are crying, when they are dry and hauled out on the beach

Flipper waving, a friendly warning not to come any closer.


Looking at this photograph I am almost certain that the seal is female. Bill managed to measure a section of the groin shown in the photograph and we were able to estimate that the seal was about 1.2 metres. Female common seals are 1.2 to 1.7 metres and males 1.4 to 1.9 m, so it is probably an adult or young adult female.

The following morning was overcast and drizzly and Bill checked for the seal from the cliff top at about 11am on Nov 1st. To his surprise it was still there. The seal seemed more cautious today and slipped into the sea which was right up to the groin as it was high tide. It popped up a few yards offshore then dived again and appeared a hundred yards or so offshore, where it stayed for the quarter of an hour or so that Bill was there. It did occasionally dive for some lengths of time so it may have been feeding.

When Bill went back the following day it had gone and he hasn’t seen it since. In Bill's own words, a fascinating first encounter with a sea mammal in the wild.

Check out earlier blog entries for more Sussex seal sightings.

If you would like to see more spectacular pictures of the coast, visit Bill Carters website at
http://www.carterphotographics.myzen.co.uk/

Seal at Peacehaven, Sussex

A young seal has been reported off the Sussex coast at Peacehaven. It has been around for a few days.

Common Seal Sighting

I received a seal sighting on Monday from John Bradshaw Chairman of the Shoreham Beach LNR Management Group. An adult common seal was hauled out on the bank of the River Adur bank near the airport, at 3.00pm. John went home to get his camera but when he returned the seal was no longer there. However, a passer by said they saw the seal swim further up river. The sighting occurred about an hour before high tide.

This is particularly interesting as seals do not usually seem to swim further up the Adur than the Norfolk bridge (just south of where the seal was spotted). I do however receive reports of seals several miles up the River Ouse and the River Arun as part of my role as Sussex County Recorder for Sea Mammals. Now that common seals are a biodiversity action plan species, sightings are even more important and its always good to receive observations.

Wexford Southern Ireland

I have just come back from holiday in Wexford (town) Wexford County in Southern Ireland. As to be expected I saw some fascinating wildlife and thought you might like to see a few pictures.

A sequence of heron pictures. This lone heron was feeding in a small puddle left behind by the receding tide

Grey seals that come into the harbour and fed scraps by fishermen (Kilmore Quay)

Two cormorants startled from a rest place on the quay

One of the more secluded sandy beaches below. Most of the beaches are long stretches of sand with few people. Many are backed by sand dunes.

Dune insects fighting near a hole (not sure what they are)

Burnet moth

There are lots of sea shells laying on the sand, wexford mussel, razor shells and large otter shells. This shell has a hole made by a predator, probably a neclace shell.

There were many seabirds including several gull species, fulmar, gannets, oystercatchers and terns. The terns were diving for fish, this one was successful.

Shoreham Beach Marine Week Event

Last Monday (11th August) I ran an event for the Friends of Shoreham Beach for Marine Week. This was an inter-tidal session on a small beach inside Shoreham Harbour. Protected it makes an idea beach for this type of event, both for the variety of creatures and the safety of the participants.

We found a wide range of animals life including beadlet sea anemones, edible winkle, limpet, dog whelk, numerous shore crabs, sea slater, amphipods, sand mason worms, rag worm, blenny and goby (fish)

Beadlet Anemone

Chiton (or coat-of-mail shell)

Common shore crab

Goby and juvenile shore crabs

There were various marine birds such as turnstones, dunlin, cormorant, terns and this egret.

We mingled with the visitors to the events and answered questions ansd pointed out things of interest. We set a few tanks and containers up at the top of the beach to house a few animals temporarily and discussed these before they were retrned to the tide pools. There was a lot of interest and many of the people said they would come back and explore the beach themselves - which is really the main aim of such an event, raising awareness and encouraging people to enguage with their coastline.

Catch Up

Due to the large amount of urban wildlife work I have been doing over the last few months I have rather neglected this blog. So I thought it was time I caught up a bit.

3rd May

A common seal was reported up the Arun River past Amberly castle by the railway crossing.

The common seal has a definite forehead and is more dog-like in profile than our other UK seal the Grey Seal. The other difference is that the grey seals nostrils are parallel while the common seals are V shaped and with the muzzle look distinctively Y-shaped. We do have a handful of seal sightings upriver each year, usually in the Ouze and the Arun. On the river Adur, the occasional seal visitor seems to be restricted to the estuary region between the harbour mouth and the Toll Bridge.

While both grey and common seals visit Sussex waters, it is the common seal that is most frequently reported (out of the sightings where a species has been identifiable). Almost all seals that have been specifically identified in upper reaches of these rivers have been common seal.

15 June 2008

Another seal, probably a common seal, was spotted in the River Adur lower estuary, first of all on the Sussex Wharf side of the river in the early evening from 8:30 pm. It then swam over to the scrapyard side (east of Monteum, where the fishing boats moor up and unload fish) and was seen for 45 minutes chasing after the fish in the river.

Dolphins

Dolphin sightings have been poor this year off Sussex, just a few. We were lucky to get a sighting during National Whale and Dolphin Watch last week in June (the only one for the south coast east of Devon). This was a sighting a sighting of a bottlenose dolphin close to the shore near Shoreham Harbour.