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

We spent a little time that day on Fianuis, observing the seals and looking at the
scenery, but we were quite tired by evening. Next day dawned wet and blustery
with visibility about six miles. We were up early and over to the fank by 8.45 am. I
took the 9.05 am radio schedule receiving messages for Morton and Malcolm. I
made up a frame for branding irons, of Dexion and tins. At 10.30 am we began
branding seal pups and completed twenty before lunch. All went well and we
quickly got the hang of it. 15-20 seconds is sufficient for the brand to ‘bite’, but
when weaners struggle it slips. The brand is a 3 inch letter "R". After lunch I made
a Dexion frame for restraining the pups; this went very well after we got the hang
of it. There were not many weaners at this date and much of our time was spent
searching for them among the boulders, carrying all the gear with us. This was
time and energy consuming. We branded 42 pups in all and were very tired at the
end of the day. Snow buntings, fieldfares and redwings were abundant.
A very stormy day followed with the wind at gale force. The waves were very
heavy at the eastern landing, but not so bad to the west, although there were
clouds of spray. The tent flapped like mad and the radio aerial pole snapped. The
snow buntings were still with us, also ravens and grey geese. We branded 35 pups
that day and again were all very tired; it was very heavy work. The Fianuis North
terrain is very rocky and much more difficult that Fianuis Central yesterday.
A heavy surf was pounding the East coast as I went along Sceapull. In an inlet I
came upon a bull and cow copulating in quite a heavy surge. From the top of a
fifteen foot cliff they were immediately below me. First they were on the surface,
the bull on top, with teeth dug into the cow's neck and holding her with his
flippers. Then they submerged for about three minutes and surfaced again in the
same position, but rolled over so they were side by side and the cow was visible;
the penis root was showing. Then the cow saw me and panicked, diving, but the
bull dived after her and caught her head.
On 20 October Jim and I made a count of pups on Fianuis North and Sceapull.
The others did Fianuis Centre and Fianuis South. We marked the pups with purple
dye as we counted so as to avoid double counting. There are some lovely rocky
islets off Fianuis North and Sceapul. I watched seals in the surf after Jim went back
and took some telephoto shots, although the light was bad. They have an
astonishing ability to keep their position in the surging surf - to within a foot or
two of the wave-swept rocks.
When submerging the grey seal usually shows its back, except when bottling,
that is standing in the water. When alarmed they turn and dive, slapping the
surface with one foreflipper as they do so and rolling over. The bulls all seemed
very timid and retreated when approached - almost as timid as the cows. I put up
a short-eared owl and a curlew.
On 23 October it was blowing hard all day and it was my turn as cook. We
rearranged the roof ropes and weighting stones and then went over to Fiannuis. A
force 7 wind from the East made work very difficult. We worked south of the
gullies in Fiannuis Central in the morning and then returned to the fank for lunch
in shelter and worked around there afterwards. We were all very tired, what with
the wind and the rain and the struggles with the seal pups, but we managed with
difficulty our self-imposed quota of 30 brandings.
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