Common Seal at Pagham Harbour

I received another fascinating common seal sighting today, the observer was walking at the Western end of the Pagham Harbour Wall (West Sussex). It was high tide and the seal swam very close to the group of people. The observer, Jacky, said it swam around and it seemed to be frolicking. Then it gazed fixedly at us made movements as if it was going to jump out of the water and attack us and at the last minute swam under and turned away. She said you could almost think it was laughing...

Jacky said it followed us as we turned the corner at the end of the wall and started to walk south then we turned back as the way was blocked by a thorn bush and went inland, so that was the last we saw of it. Jacky remarked that it was a quite fabulous encounter. Jacky spoke to the people at the Pagham Harbour Reserve who told her that they do have one seal in occasionally and it comes they think from a colony at Hayling Island.

From the seal tagging project I was involved in and covered last year in this weblog, we did indeed discover that one of the seals from the Hayling Island group did venture into Pagham Harbour on occasions.