I received a seal sighting, off Normans Bay East Sussex, 2.45pm from Darren accompanied by a short video which clearly showed this to be a grey seal. The seal was swimming and then exhibiting bottling behaviour - floating horizontally with head above the water.
The seal appeared to be curious and inquisitive and aware of Darren and his party on the beach.
It kept bobbing up every time Darren's party sat down. The sea ranged between 25 and 100 metres from the shore. The area it was swimming in was very flat shallow sand exposed when the tide is out when it was closest to the beach.
At times swimming fast, Darren estimated 'the seal covered a distance of a couple of hundred metres within 20 seconds or so'.
It is unclear at present if grey seals have become more common off Sussex over the last 5 years or whether mobile phones (with cameras) mean more sightings are accompanied by a photo that we can use to make a positive species identification.
Seal Video of Sighting Link
4 comments:
They appear regularly and get quite close to the beach. My husband just saw four, which is the most we have ever seen at one time.
Lorraine
It’s hauled out too once at night which scared the dogs but sat on the beach for a couple of hours two days ago and then again yesterday. It’s a bull seal but I’ve been told there’s at least one more about.
My grandson was fishing with his grandad and great uncle during the summer holidays, lewis is 7 and the seal was eating his fish
My husband saw seven last week! We live here and see them regularly.
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