Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

possible. The shore here was deeply indented with narrow coves and the headlands
between were high and very steep, so any survey was necessarily laborious. There
were very few suitable elephant seal beaches (indeed during that day I observed only
12 elephants). Now that I knew the position of the possible beaches, ensuing surveys
would be much less laborious since it would be all right to miss out stretches of the
coast. I made my way around Porteous Point and into Cummings Cove.
Two days later Derek counted the seals between base and Orwell Glacier for me.
There were very few in Elephant Flats now as it was pretty well iced over with only a
small area of open water in the centre. Next day, as the weather looked so promising
I decided to go over to the Port Jebsen coast to finish the all-island seal census.
Elephant Flats was quite frozen over and in our bay the new ice was forming
pancakes. We cut across Orwell Glacier, then went across to Snow Hill and the rocks
to the west. I intended striking across to where I broke off the survey of the west
coast on the 11th but was forced to make a wide detour to avoid ice cliffs and steep
slopes. Derek turned back about 1.30 pm and I made my way down the ice valley to
the coast. I saw no Weddells or crabeaters and only one leopard, although there were
many suitable floes. The elephants were very sparse.
On the shore in the centre of Port Jebsen was a large boiler – from the wreck of
the Tioga. It was here that a medium-sized male elephant seal charged me in a very
atypical manner; I went back a few yards and then gave him a rap on the nose which
made him quite noisy but he didn't try to attack me again. I continued the count to
Cummings Cove, thus completing the survey of Signy Island. Then back over Tioga
Hill and round the Horseshoe to Garnet Hill.
Next week I went out again to count seals, hoping to get across the mouth of
Elephant Flats on the floes but this wasn't possible as a near gale arose and I found
open water at the entrance. So I made a count of the elephants on the south side of
the Flats. Numbers had gone up, due no doubt to evacuation of the more ice-bound
beaches. There were 119 in the area covered – mostly large males and only one
undoubted female. On 26 April I counted the seals in the main study area starting at
Stygian Cove. There had been a general falling off in numbers but still many groups
of large bulls. (There were were 313 large males, 138 medium males, and 15 small
males; I saw no females.) Making my way up Jane Peak I met Derek on the way
down having taken all the bearings he needed. Together we went back to the beach
and Ralph took Derek back for the Met Ob. I stayed over to finish the count, working
north from Elephant Flats.
The pack came in two days later and in half an hour the bay was full of large
floes – on one of which was an elephant. Next day there was another elephant on
floes near Berntsen Point. Two days later the pack was still in the bay and many
elephant seals were venturing onto floes near the beaches. Their numbers seemed
much less. On 1 May Ralph and I went up to Biggs Bluff and saw only four seals
offshore on floes, one of which was a leopard and the others elephants. It was
interesting to me that elephants hauled out on ice floes; this had not been reported
before and was in extreme contrast to the northern elephant seal, which basks on
sub-tropical beaches off California!
Next day I made a count from Berntsen Point to the glacier returning after dark.
The seals were rapidly falling off in numbers and most were in the water and
fighting; there were 44 on this stretch of coast. Next day Ralph and I had a look for
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