Sunday 25 October 2009

Early mornings

I was up at half past five this morning (though to be fair to the dogs their body clocks were saying half past six), so decided to make the trek over to John O'Groats to the grey seal beach.

Glad I did. Grey seal pups are one of the cutest creatures alive.

Grey seals

Grey seals

And the beach was just packed with seals:

Grey seals

Grey seals

They're by no means tame, but by staying low and moving slowly, you can get very close without spooking them:

Grey seals

Grey seals

Grey seals

The focus is a little bit off on this, damn it, but I couldn't resist keeping it:

Grey seals

And I never knew seals could boggle, but this one's eyes are almost out of its head!:

Grey seals

The males get very, very aggressive at this time of year, but there wasn't much fighting going on this morning, the worst of it was a bit of handbagging:

Grey seals

And how's this for a goofy grin?:

Grey seals

I spent about two hours there and would have stayed longer, despite the rain, if it wasn't for someone coming over the top of the dunes with a camera and marching straight up to the seals, who promptly disappeared into the water. 100+ seals all galumphing off a beach in under 2 minutes is an impressive sight though.

8 comments:

LG said...

You have a lovely blog Caroline, I enjoyed my visit. Keep it up I will certaily pop in again

LG

Konfral said...

Great photos! I'm so jealous...
Consider adding them to the Autumnwatch Flickr pool.

Caroline said...

Oh Caroline what lovely, lovely photographs they made me smile. You are so lucky to have them on your doorstep so to speak. Take care. Caroline x

Gennasus said...

The joys of blogging, you just never know where you might end up. I was following links and am so glad I found your blog, I've really enjoyed looking back through it. You have some fabulous photos.

We did a trip up and round the north last year. Wild and empty but great scenery. Might do it again next summer but on the motorbike this time.

It looks like your beaches are even emptier than ours!

My Castle in Spain said...

i'm so glad i discovered your blog through one of my followers..
i'm French and live in Spain but feel a strong attraction now and then to the North and your blog makes me want to travel through Scotland !
beautiful...
i'll be back!
:-)

PurestGreen said...

I just found your blog through Neil's blog and I lurve these seals and I lurve your blog. Just lovely. Have added you to my "favourite Scotland Blogs" list.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Wonderful photos, you've really captured some lovely moments there! I love seals...

Anonymous said...

very nice pictures....i tries myself too to get some pictures of the environment around me but my camera is not good enough to catch the beauty of the nature here....but anyway i am just a neophyte photographer who loves nature ...hopefully soon i will learn the art of photography...