Friday 14th November 2008
Seals and the Sea
This week we take a look at seals, the different types and where you can see them in the UK. We also take a look at photographing the sea.
Seals are mammals, and in Britain we have two types of seals the Grey seal and the Common or Harbour seal.
Grey seals are found on both sides of the North Atlantic, on the West Coast off Canada, on the East Side of Iceland, the Faroes, Northern Norway, North East Russia, in the Baltic Sea and off the British Isles.
The British population is two thirds of the worlds population and is found principally off the Scottish Islands, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, the Pembrokeshire Islands, the Farne Islands, the East Coast of England and the North and West coasts of Ireland. Favoured haul-out sites include inaccessible islands, coves and caves.
Common seals are smaller than Grey seals and their coats are more extensively spotted. Their facial features are also different, with snub noses and nostrils that form a "V" shape. Common seals prefer hauling-out on sand banks and gently shelving rocky, shingle or sandy beaches. They are found on both sides of the North Atlantic and on the Eastern seaboard of the North Pacific. The British population is distributed mainly in the Wash, the major Scottish estuaries, the Scottish islands and West Coast, and the West Coast of Ireland. Occasionally they are found off the Cornish coast.
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A Seal off of Skomer, Pembrokeshire
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You can find out more by looking at the pages
on Grey Seals
and
Common
seals.
We take a look at well at some
locations where you can see and
photograph seals in the UK.
Our second topic this week is
photographing the sea.
While before we have looked at photographing the coast, this article looks at
the sea as a subject in its own right as opposed to a part of a larger scene.
Within the article we also link to relevant other articles and resources that we
have on this website.
The symbols within our pages
If you have been one of the many to first visit
us over the last month or so, you may not have picked up what our little symbols
mean within our pages. The jigsaw piece
indicates that the item is an article on this website, while the
image indicates that the item is a listing on this site. If you see a
against an item, this means that its a section or system page on this website.
External links, all throw into a new window and carry the external link
symbol.
Location guides on this site are shown with one of three symbols
for a location guide,
for a
featured guide, these are usually more detailed, with more photos and many have
been visited by us, and
for a quick guide, these usually contain a smaller amount of information.
shows the item to be a route guide.
There are other symbols to show the type of locations, most of these are fairly obvious.
Putting your mouse pointer over these or any other symbols gives a description and if you click on any of the symbols you get a page with a full list of all the symbols currently in use, thrown into a new window so that you don't loose your page.
You will find a separate set of symbols used by
or under photographs, showing the copyright situation and where images are able
to be used under the creative commons licences. There is a key to the meaning of
these symbols and we have a number of articles on creative commons and
would encourage everyone to take part in this arrangement. We have an
article
on creative commons
and a key to what each
Creative commons symbol means
and more.
A third set of symbols, usually used within our wildlife pages, show the conservation status and how endangered or otherwise animals and birds are.
Blakeney Point,
Norfolk
Donna Nook,
Lincolnshire
Farne Islands,
Northumberland
National
Seal Sanctuary, Gweek, Cornwall
Ramsey Island,
Pembrokeshire
Seal Sands
Yorkshire
Skokholm,
Pembrokeshire
Skomer Island,
Pembrokeshire
Strangford
Lough, Northern Ireland
