Seals Galore!

This wasn't actually going to be my blip today, for quite a number of reasons. Firstly I wasn't even supposed to be where this was taken - driving north this morning I was going to meet my brother en route to Ellon (north of Aberdeen) for a hillwalk. He wasn't feeling great, however, so a change of plan saw us meeting in Aberdeen for a wee wander, then heading to Newburgh to see if the seals were about.

We normally head up the opposite side from where the seals haul themselves up onto the beach, but today, having time for the longer walk, and it being a time of year you're allowed to walk round (basically when there aren't very young pups about), we sauntered round their side.

Even then we didn't expect to se many there, if any, given there were people walking ahead of us, and they are easily spooked into the water. So this was originally going to be my blip (a shot I really like), but that was going to be superceded by some seals coming to look at us from the water. And then...

Rounding the corner I caught sight of one seal hauling itself out of the water, so we rounded to keep a distance away onto the dunes behind, and coming into view were at least 200 seals. We climbed the dunes to get a view of them all, then came back down, wondering how close we could get. 30 metres was about the closest before they got a wee bit spooked, so we sat there for about 45 minutes just snapping away and watching and listening.

Other rejected blips:

Face off
Cute
Fight!

And quite a few more around those Flickr links... No doubt at all that my brother will also be blipping the seals, but he's till working through his shots.

Now, Newcastle playing Bristol City on the telly, an Indian takeaway, then England v. France in the last 6 Nations match. Excellent.

Considering the day started with the disappointment of of a plan cancelled it really has worked out rather well...