April ramble Seal Point

Our outing with the ramblers on 11th April took us to Seal Point, at the end of a long peninsula on the far side of Port Harriet. It was an interesting circular walk starting along the north coast where there were quite a lot of birds and a couple of remaining magellanic penguins.


I was particularly interested to find this plant of the Falklands smooth ragwort. There are 2 endemic Falklands ragworts - smooth and woolly. They are both quite short and nothing like the invasive and poisonous European ragwort. I have often seen plants flowering near Stanley on Engineers Point but have never been able to decide which sort they were.


Having spotted the smooth one on our ramble I could clearly see the difference so now know that the local ones are woolly ones.


Towards the end of Seal Point there is a dense area of tussac grass which has been fenced off to prevent the sheep over grazing it. We could hear sea lions moving around and got to see quite a lot, incuding these 2 pups who were enjoying playing together.


This adult male was well hidden amongst the tussac having a snooze!