Another seal at Littlehampton

Another report from Emma who spotted a seal again today and took a picture. Zooming in you can make out the head which suggests that it is a grey seal. It was about 9.30am and roughly in front of the east beach cafe.

Seal at Littlehampton

I received an e-mail from Emma who had a close-up encounter with a seal when she an afternoon dip in the sea at Littlehampton at 3.20pm. The seal surfaced about 10 feet away. She reported that she got out swiftly and had a look for it from land but did not see it again.

Grey Seal Worthing

A (probable) grey seal was observed yesterday by Greg while walking his dog along Worthing seafront opposite Heene terrace in the evening.

The seal was on the beach a few feet above the tide line. Greg said “when it saw me, I retreated so as not to alarm!” “he seemed just as surprised to see me as I him!”

Grey Seal Goring West Sussex

A grey seal was spotted just west of Goring Gap, by John and Shena doing a spot of birding. The large seal was swimming leisurely eastwards and parallel to the coast at 13:10. They estimated the seal was no more than 40 feet from shore. There was a high tide that had just begun to fall.

seal and dog interaction

A seal was observed by Svetlana at 7.10am between Elmer Sands and Climping beach. Svetlana had been running her dog, which she does frequently.

Afterwards she went for a swim with her dog (large German shepherd). Not long after entering the water she saw a big head about 100 meters from them. At first she was a bit wary. She continued to swim with the dog the head surfaced about 10 m in front of her

Svetlana said “My dog decided to swim to him and say ‘hello’ but I immediately turned around, strongly shouting to my dog and get out of water”.

This an interesting sighting. Over the years there have been a few encounters where seals have shown an interest in dogs, occasionally in the water main from shore from the beach and from the river bank.

Grey Seal Beachy Head

I have just received a report of a grey seal 17th September. This was a single  Grey Seal (probably male) observed from the sandy beach at Falling Sands, below Beachy Head, TV 592 954 at 7pm.

The seal's head was above water, looking round, some 50 yards from the water's edge, for about 30 minutes or more. It was low tide and the seal may have been waiting to come ashore.

Tide Pool and Microscope Cam Event

Rock pools and microscope demonstration was the second of our rock pooling events. 2 weeks ago we ran our annual family tide pool event at the beach inside the mouth at Shoreham Harbour, by the Shoreham Fort.

Today I helped run the second event for Friends of Shoreham Beach (LNR). Again families were invited to collect a few sea creatures to observe. This time, instead of placing them in special tanks at the top of the beach, the creatures were brought up to me, based in the Shoreham Fort Nissan Hut.  Each creature was then placed underneath a microscope cam and projected on a TV screen.

So the aim was to find some of the smaller tide pool animals to examine.

Some of the larger animals included prawns, shore crabs, sea anemones, a cockle and a rock goby. There were also smaller specimens of prawns, common goby, amphipods, marine worms, edible periwinkle.

Various small juvenile shore crabs were also collected each having its own unique camouflage pattern providing clues to the part of shore the crab lived.

Highlight of the session had to be the two juvenile pipefish  (above)collected by one of the children.

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We have found juvenile pipefish on previous occasions but always a rare find on this beach.

A very enjoyable morning, lots of fascinated and excited visitors.