CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
Elephant Seals
Rod, Buddy & I drove north from Morro Bay. We stopped at a view spot and saw our first few elephant seals on a beach. Buddy was quite fascinated and wanted to go down to play and investigate further, but we knew that we weren't supposed to go near them.
We went further up the road to Piedras Blanco, where we knew the elephant seals congregated. We left Buddy in the car, went along the boardwalk, and this was the amazing sight before us.
A docent explained that it was at calving time in their season. The mother here had just given birth (her wet newborn lies beside her), and this event is signaled by the gathering of gulls who swoop down and gobble up the afterbirth.
Soon after birth, the mother and blind baby talk to one another to get used to the sound of each other's voices. That way if they are separated in the melee of seals, they will call out until they find their way back to each other.
The job of the huge bull seal is to watch over his harem of up to 30 females while they are birthing and nursing, and keep the juvenile males away from them.
A daunting task as juveniles are always nearby. He hollers when one comes near.
Here's 2 juvenile males practice fighting. They do a lot of barking and lunging, and biting each other's chests.
The huge males that win the harems are covered with scratches and bite marks on their chests.
Here's a male who got to a new mother. Mating starts with him putting his flipper over her, she squawks and struggles, but as he pursues his goal, she finally relaxes and looks pleased. However, I can just hear this one saying, "Leave me alone, you brute, I just had a baby!"
One of the things these amazing creatures do regularly in the sunshine is throw sand over their backs to keep themselves cool. Isn't this one charming?
This was an amazing slice of life we saw up close, with something different going on below us everywhere we looked. We were awed, and will return!
