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A recent visitor from Europe asked if I could get some photos of the seals at Port George for her, and so I headed over there at about 1pm yesterday on a beautiful sunny and totally calm day. It was almost low tide and there was hardly a wave in sight. The exposed reef had one section that was literally covered in seal bodies, they were so close that you could often only see a portion of an individual animal. When I first showed up they responded with bellows and growls that made it sound like a stockyard, but they soon settled down and ignored me even when I came close to them. I was able to count 34 seals lounging on the reef and several more heads in the nearby waters, one of the largest numbers I have seen here. When I studied them through the scope, at least 20 were Grey Seals and probably a lot more - I am not good at recognizing seals from rear ends and flippers, which is all you could see of some of them. It would seem that the numbers of Grey Seals are increasing rapidly while the Harbour seals may even be declining a little - maybe they are just being pushed out of that area. The basalt rocks of the reef also make it hard to see details of the darker individuals. There were a few obvious juveniles and they wisely kept apart from their elephantine elders. The two Male Harlequin Ducks that arrived a week ago are still in the same places, one near the Cottage Cove reef and the other near the lighthouse - about as far apart as they can get. I have not seen any females as yet. There were also about 35 Common Eiders, 3 White Winged Scoters, 3 Surf Scoters, 2 Red Throated Loons and 6 Red-necked Grebes. As others have noted, flocks of Robins are literally everywhere. Amazingly, I stopped in at the Margaretville DU site and saw absolutely nothing, maybe someone has scared them all off. John Belbin - Kingston
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