Grey Seal After a phone call from my brother in Norfolk, to say that the Grey seals on his local beach had come ashore to give birth to their pups, I decided to make the 6 hour drive to photograph these fabulous animals. The weather forecast for Sunday was dry and he had already seen 7 pups on Thursday so the chances were by Sunday there would be quite a few more.

I decided to drive over Friday night and spent  Saturday at the RSPB reserve Titchwell North Norfolk with my brother. The weather was pretty dire and photography was really out of the question. We did however see some plenty of bird species and I am sure I will make another visit someday.

Sunday morning arrived and together with my brother and his partner Wendy we drove to Horsey dunes, there was a hard frost and the surrounding fields were white although the sun was already shining and it was soon to disappear. We arrived at the car park and there was only one other car there so we had the beach to ourselves (and the seals). The board in the car park announced that 78 pups had now been born so we knew that we would get plenty of opportunities to get some shots.

Once we had walked over the dunes I could see the Grey seals all the way along the beach as far as the eye could see. Even though I have seen many seals before in the water I was totally amazed at their HUGE size. Each Pup was being protected by a Cow while the Bulls were either fighting or sleeping on the beach (typical males). Many pups had only just been born and to the untrained eye appeared to be dead, lying motionless and still bloodstained from their birth.

We spent quite a few hours photographing these giants and the biggest problem I had was I had forgotten my 300mm lens and was forced to use the 500mm which was a problem because I would be too close, I tried walking back but due to the sheer numbers this was not always possible as it was all to easy to walk back too close to a protective female or worse a huge Bull. These guys could move quicker than you think if you were too close and were surprisingly quiet when they shifted their huge bulk over the soft sand.

N.B We did obtain permission from Natural England warden to go on the beach

I travelled back home to Devon that night very tired but also very happy!!