Seals

Yesterday morning I was out on the beach checking up on some of our Oystercatcher chicks in their various stages of development. As you can see, they are coming on well, and the bird in the top image has already found it's voice, and is well into the transformation from cute ball of fluff to horrible screeching noisy bastard, bless em.

Whilst standing on the shoreline, some of the local seals came over for a look too, coming really close. Being a photographer, 'really close' is never close enough of course, so I waded waist-deep in to the channel, and was rewarded with them coming too close to even focus on. They were just so curious, definitely a case of 'whos watching who', with the Grey Seal pubs (born last winter) coming the closest. A couple of big bulls came over snorting loudly, which was a bit intimidating at first, but they always kept their distance. I don't mind admitting that I was eyeing up my options for fleeing to the shore if they came in too near though, thems some serious monsters, and having watched them fighting before, I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of a friendly nibble. After an hour in the water I had lost feeling in my toes, and called it a day. That water really isn't as warm as it looks, but I was happy with a nice selection of shots of these cracking beasties, and spending time up close and personal with them is always a pleasure.

And just to restore the birdy theme, here's a cheeky little Swallow, sat on one of the sheds that it's chicks are currently busy filling with mounds of poo.