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

proved to be pregnant. Next day a message came to me from Geoff Hettersley-
Smith: “Over 200 seals in Admiralty Bay now. Taking copious notes as
suggested.” This influx of crabeaters to inshore waters was extremely
interesting. (I was to observe thousands myself in Admiralty Bay nearly thirty
years later).
After a week Ralph went to Gourlay to see the seals. He reported two elephants,
one a large bull, and 64 female Weddells, 48 pups and four males, and estimated
another 30 were outside the Oliphant Islands. In the evening I designed a metal
clip for marking seals. It was made from the strips of monel metal provided for
bird ringing and I stamped it with: “Inform FIDS Colonial Office London”. My idea
was to make a hole in the web of a hind-flipper at the appropriate distance from
the free edge, and insert one end; it would then be bent to form an overlapping
clip and closed with a pair of pliers.
Next day it was overcast and blizzarding, but I decided to have a look at the
seals for myself - and trust that my foot would be all right. (I had recently been
incapacitated by frostbite on our winter journey, described elsewhere, which
explains why I had missed the seals’ developments). First, I made some more
tags and then went over the sea-ice to Gourlay. There were eighteen Weddells
and fifteen pups off the end of Observation Bluff and five Weddells with pups
off Shag Rock. The pups off Observation Bluff were mostly quite young and the
mothers rather fierce, whereas those at Shag Rock were much older and larger
and the mothers less likely to stay and protect them. Sexing was difficult as there
was a high wind and the pups were encased in drift snow and ice, so I left it for a
better day.
I tried to affix a clip to one pup, whose mother moved away, but her persistent
efforts to return after getting over her initial surprise made marking impossible.
Clearly two people at least were necessary - one to hold off the mother while the
other attached the clip. Several of the mothers made straight for me on sight -
one when I was still thirty yards away. They would not move far from the pups
and usually advanced up to five yards before returning to their pup. Its
movement and cries stimulated an aggressive maternal instinct.
The variation in colour of the pups was slight, some being a dark, almost
chocolate, brown with intermediate colours through to the more usual greyyellow-green
shade, almost golden in sunshine. They were a delight. Some of the
older pups were already moulting and the dark silver-grey of the first new coat
showed in patches where the natal coat had been shed, beginning about the head
and fore-flippers. Young pups snapped viciously when handled but became
more docile as they grew older; the large ones were incredibly strong though.
Noises made by the mothers included barks, whistling in the throat and a sort of
hiccuping or whooping made with the mouth either open or shut: glup, glup,
glup, glup glup . . . . . glup, with increasing pitch. There were several breathingholes
in the young ice near the edge of the fast ice and on the way back I made a
sketch of a mother and pup at their hole in Paal Harbour. Shortly after the
middle of the month a Weddell was lying at Outer Islet and one in Paal Harbour,
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