Seal Slap

On my morning walk along the West Bay Walkway seldom a day passes but I see something interesting and new (to me). What you're seeing here is a Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina) engaged in some communicative behavior. Harbor Seals communicate underwater vocally but they also communicate by slapping the water or themselves with their flippers as in the above photo. Normally they swim around without a lot of splashing. However, to mark a fishing territory or during mating they also use this slapping communication method. You can see (and hear) a few slaps in the short video below. There were several of these seals slapping while I watched and they continued for about twenty minutes.

Summer Seal

I was down at Fleming Beach a few nights ago and was pleasantly surprised by seeing no less than five Harbor Seals lolling around in the clear water near the fishing dock. I think they wait there for sport fisherman to bring their boats in and clean their fish. There's usually plenty of scraps. These seals were really enjoying a lazy evening in the water while waiting for the boats to come in, some of them floating on their backs and others nudging and rolling over each other.

Copycat

It's always fun to watch the Harbour Seals at Fisherman's Wharf greeting the tourists and sharing some sashimi. However, I was surprised to see this year that another harbour resident has learned about the free fish - that's a River Otter popping up there to see what the tourists have to offer.

Pup

As if to provide the perfect example of yesterday's discussion of my discovery of the digital teleconverter function of my Sony Alpha 550 DSLR I encountered this seal pup taking a break while I was out for my morning walk yesterday. I wasn't even carrying my camera bag, just the camera with the kit lens, an 18-55mm zoom, when I spied this little fellow lolling on a boat ramp along the Westsong Walkway. With the zoom maxed out at 55mm I focused in on him and took a few shots. Then I switched to "live view" and pushed the teleconverter button which gave me the equivalent of 110mm - not much of a telephoto but it still effectively halved the distance between me and this Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina) pup. I suspect this is a feature of my camera that I will be using regularly.