August 2, 2023
Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest
Friendly Seal has a pup this year!
Friendly Seal is the name we gave the Harbor Seal we met in 2013, a mischievous playful youngster following us in our kayaks, playing tag and peekaboo. I estimate she was one or two years old that year, by her size and behavior. A decade later she still roams my local bay regularly, fishing, hauling out onto the dinghy dock for a night or day’s snooze, watching people on shore, the docks, boats. While she doesn’t interact playfully as she did in those early days, the fact that she spends so much time in this bay means she’s still friendly, in her own unique way. This diary about her 2019 pup has lots more info about Friendly Seal, including links to many diaries I’ve written about her and our local Harbor seals.
She often rests on the dock where we keep our boat. Here’s a clip of her back in June from trailcam footage. I now know she was pregnant; at the time it was impossible to tell, given how stretchy and flexible seals are. She’d likely have given birth a couple of weeks later (after a 10-month pregnancy).
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I don’t think FS has a pup every year. July is peak pup season in the northern Salish Sea. When I see her day in day out unaccompanied by a pup during a July I figure that’s probably an off year for her, although I can’t be certain since mama seals will park their pups for a while onshore somewhere safe while they fish.
Only twice before have I actually seen her with a pup: in 2016 and 2019. Female Harbor seals reach reproductive maturity sometime between ages three and five. Both these encounters were in this same bay.
July 16, 2016. Pup was riding on her back
July 13, 2019. Pup was nursing
Interestingly, wherever FS gave birth, she brought her flipperlings into this particular bay on several occasions, almost as if she was teaching them about a good safe fishing spot. I’ve seen young small Harbor seals accompanying her, both swimming and hauled out, and I’ve wondered if they are her offspring. All her pups have had a light greyish coloration, and so have some of the youngsters who spend time here.
January 23, 2022. FS and small whitish seal
You might wonder how I know this is Friendly Seal. Besides her distinctive personality, like all Harbor seals she has a particular fur pattern that persists all her life, regardless of annual molts. In her case, I can tell it’s her even when all I can see is her head above the surface: on the right side of her head she has “wrench” patterns, on her left, little semicircles. You might be able to see those in these pics of this year’s mom/flipperling pair from August 2, behind her ear (she was a ways off so granted it’s pretty tough):
FS and flipperling
On this occasion they were both chilling out on the surface. The pup was resting/sleeping, raising its nose to get a breath periodically. FS circled around it, watching the shoreline and boats.
Some kids were talking and playing on the beach. FS has always been intrigued by children. And dogs.
She can see me up on the bluff watching her
At a certain point the pup woke up and looked around for mom.
Pup looking around. You can see how pup faces are shorter in shape compared to adult seals.
Then mom gathered up her pup and led it away out of the bay. Sometimes pups ride on mom’s back if it’s a long distance but it looks like this pup was old enough to swim independently. Soon enough it will be on its own, since Harbor Seal moms leave them once weaned, around 6 weeks old.
Heading out of the bay after the snooze
This view of the bay shows how protected it is, almost completely encircled by land, and quite shallow. The seaweed in foreground is where the westerly breeze has blown it into this corner, which is where FS and her pup were resting.
The term “flipperling” comes from the Rudyard Kipling poem Seal Lullaby which introduces his short story “The White Seal” (1893). Eric Whitacre set the poem to music, here sung by VOCES8, a British vocal ensemble.
Seal Lullaby
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.
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Mortality for Harbor seal pups is high their first year due to starvation and predation. Friendly Seal appears to give her pups the best possible start in life, teaching them where this bay is, with its abundant fish and protection from predators. I am hopeful this “weary wee flipperling” will return safely in coming months and years.
🦦
Mostly sunny and dry the Pacific Northwest islands. Temp in high 70s, low 80s. Light northerly breeze.
What’s up in nature in your neighborhood?
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