A lovely day out

a small section of the beach

Every year I visit the seals at Donna Nook.  It's one of their favourite breeding grounds and it's a National Nature Reserve managed by Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.  It's a bleak place, always cold with sad looking mud flats but the seals find it wonderful.

pups investigating each other

The first time I went I took binoculars as I wanted to be sure of seeing at least one seal.  I needn't have bothered.  According to last week's pupdate there are at least 1499 pups, 1522 cows and 495 bulls on the beach at the moment.  I couldn't see them all but I could see far more than I could count.

They have white fur when they are born although initially it is yellow with amniotic fluid.  The mother loses up to half her bodyweight feeding her pup so they never have twins.  

Pup feeding from mum.

The site is very well managed with lots of wardens to answer questions.  There's a double fence between humans and seals so we can't touch them and they can't bite us.

And there's a bacon butty and soup wagon to create a perfect end to a freezing cold visit!