Helgoland - Day 3 - The miracle of birth

Our third and last day on Helgoland. We went to Düne again and after that we went to the higher part of Helgoland to see the "Lange Anna" sea stack. This is near where I captured the images of the Northern Gannets earlier this year.

One of the members of the group I'm guiding said on Tuesday that her biggest wish was, to capture the birth of a baby seal. That would of course require a lot of luck and I still can't believe that's exactly what happened in the morning, just as we were about to get ready to get back to Helgoland. Right at the beginning of the South beach (Südstrand), it was very clear one of the female grey seals was having contractions, so we decided to hang around and sure enough: half an hour or so later, a grey seal pup was born! I have beautiful images of the actual birth, but I don't think that's suitable for Blipfoto, so here is a shot right after birth and an image of the mother seal as an extra.