Afternoon With the Seals

(January 23rd) After a morning at the cliffs, I headed over to the spot where the Harbor Seals were. The great things about seals, is they don't move much. You can count on them to be around when you want them to. So if you time it right with the sun and tides, all is good. The seals come to this cove to climb up out of the water and rest on the sand.

In a little while some of the seals will give birth, but for now most of the seals are just lounging around. They all have individual looks to them. Some are darker, some lighter, each with their own markings.

One of the things about the seals is that spend most of their time sleeping. The Harbor Seals are a bit more active (and a heck of a lot smaller) than the Northern Elephant Seals I observed last year, but still sleeping is their number one activity.

When you are watching the seals, you are waiting intently for the action. If you look away, there's a good chance you'll miss it. When it happens, you have to be on the ball to make the click. Sometimes it's just a little thing like this seal sticking its tongue out at me.

To shoot these seals, I was low. By that I mean I was lying on the ground with the camera an inch or so off of it. Even still, due to the slope of the ground, some of the seals were below me, but some were at eye level. Such cute faces too!

I had a great time with the Harbor Seals. I only spend a couple of hours, but I knew I would have another seven days with them and they weren't going anywhere. For now I would just enjoy them and make a few photos. The next few days I could work on capturing specific shots that I had in mind or developed as I watched more of their behavior.

My favorite shot of the session was a miss - it wasn't quite sharp enough for my standards. A pity, but this shot was near the top of the ones I liked. This seal seems to be laughing at a private joke. Sometimes animals can look so much like humans.