We have now visited Cape Dolphin 3 times. Our first visit was with John just over a year ago when I took these photos. Cape Dolphin is on the north west of East Falkland, about 2 hours drive on road from here and then about an hour off road. The most fascinating thing to see there are the large breeding colonies of southern sea lions.
The pups are born late Decedmber or early January so these are about a month old and were having great fun playing in the rock pools. When we took Pete and Niki this year they were new born and we actually watched one being born.
The mature males are huge and have a mane of longer hair all arround their necks. They each have a harem of females and fiercely fight off any other males.
The sea lions mate a few days after the pups are born. The males were treating the females quite viciously and sometimes when scuffles were happening a mother would pick up her pup in her mouth and throw it quite a distance onto the rocks.
When the pups are born they are black but gradually get paler. The adult females are different shades of golden brown but the males are darker.
We visited again last weekend with Hannah and Simon. Unfortunately it was very wet and windy (as it has been for most of their time here!) but it was still amazing to be there just above the top of the beach watching them all. We watched another colony on the other side of the Cape too.
At the end of the Cape there is a large area of tussac grass. When John was with us we started walking through this but it got a bit scary when we suddenly came across sealions almost under our feet so we decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated.
John can just be seen in the middle of this picture hidden by the tussac grass, which grows very tall and densely.
The pups are born late Decedmber or early January so these are about a month old and were having great fun playing in the rock pools. When we took Pete and Niki this year they were new born and we actually watched one being born.
The mature males are huge and have a mane of longer hair all arround their necks. They each have a harem of females and fiercely fight off any other males.
The sea lions mate a few days after the pups are born. The males were treating the females quite viciously and sometimes when scuffles were happening a mother would pick up her pup in her mouth and throw it quite a distance onto the rocks.
When the pups are born they are black but gradually get paler. The adult females are different shades of golden brown but the males are darker.
We visited again last weekend with Hannah and Simon. Unfortunately it was very wet and windy (as it has been for most of their time here!) but it was still amazing to be there just above the top of the beach watching them all. We watched another colony on the other side of the Cape too.
At the end of the Cape there is a large area of tussac grass. When John was with us we started walking through this but it got a bit scary when we suddenly came across sealions almost under our feet so we decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated.
John can just be seen in the middle of this picture hidden by the tussac grass, which grows very tall and densely.
1 comment:
That grass is certainly scary... I think that Niki found that out when we were there. I'd hate to suddenly have a Sea Lion jump out on me when I wasn't expecting it.
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