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

and 118 around the Gourlay Peninsula - Clowes Bay area. There was also a
large bull elephant, and probably another further out near the Oliphants.
A couple of days later we decided to visit the Northwest coast to check on seal
numbers and look for limestone outcrops. Derek and I went on ski crossing by
Stygian Col, over a crusty and variable surface, improving towards the shore; we
took a very steep slope at the bottom on skis with trepidation – still not very
expert. While Derek geologised, I went off observing Weddells - I got several
sketches of their attitudes - and sexing their pups, but it wasn’t possible to sex
many of them because the mothers were generally fierce and I couldn’t singlehandedly
examine pups that were lying on their stomachs. Some lay on their
backs - indeed this seemed to be a favorite posture, but many rolled over on my
approach. I got a sketch of the area west of the Cragsman (Cuillins) Peaks. While
I was close to one berg it began to turn turtle - and I skied away as quickly as
possible - but fortunately it turned out to be only a slight settling movement, as it
was grounded.
I worked down the coast, joining Derek from time to time as our paths crossed,
and then went out and around Jebsen Rocks. There were about eighty seals in
this area; all of them were Weddells and I estimated about 400-500 on the West
coast, most within 1 4 mile of the coast. But it was impossible to count them
exactly as many were hidden behind ice blocks and bergs and only visible from
certain angles. The pups in this area were more advanced than on the Southeast
coast. A tenth of the seals lying out were males and a tenth of the females had no
pup.
Several mothers when disturbed went through the actions of swinging their head
with neck bent and sweeping the snow from side to side I has noticed earlier;
some burrowed down directly as if attempting to dig a hole. I wasn’t sure that
this was due to disturbance, as once or twice a mother began to go through these
motions when I was still some distance away – even out of her sight. I noticed a
similar habit in the pups when young, but a tendency to burrow straight down.
The pups at this stage of the moult began to roll over on their backs like the
adults. They also made a squeak or whistle and a bubbly noise similar to the
whooping of the adults. One large pup wandered about on its own making a
plaintive ‘mooing’ noise, and may have been searching for its mother. Some of
the females were extremely attenuated and skinny, especially those with the
largest pups. This was due to the depletion of their blubber layer by the suckling,
so that the muscle tracts were unusually prominent. Research has shown that the
mother loses about half her body weight during a 48-day lactation period, due to
depletion of her fat reserves in transferring milk to the pup.
The pups and their mothers often yawned and stretched their hind-flippers -
slowly and gracefully - opening out the digits like a fan. Also the older pups had
a well-developed scratching habit; even when quite young they passed a foreflipper
across head and face as if rubbing their eyes. Later they were able to flex
digits and use their claws to scratch an irritable spot. Some of the pairs snapped
at each other quite viciously, but without doing any damage - though one
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