From the Field

December 2009 - sex & violence

The seal colony at Donna Nook on the Lincolnshire coast must be one of the most photographed sites on the British mainland. Sooner or later, I had to go there if if it was only to see why it is so popular; but when I did, and despite having been warned by others, I was totally unprepared for how close the seals come to the visitors. They were literally within touching distance, laying by our feet as we left the car park and made our way along the footpath. Totally undisturbed by human presence, photographing them was never going to be hard; but as always, getting something different would be.

With the red flags flying, and the RAF practising on the bombing range, heading out onto the sand bars where the majority of the usual low viewpoint shots are taken, wasn’t an option.  So I decided to try and illustrate part of their story with my pictures rather than attempt to emulate my betters and get too arty.

The focus of that story would become apparent over the course of the morning as the seal’s violent mating ritual dominated the activity in front of us. The newly born pups have just 18 days to feed from the mother and then they are on their own; living off their blubber before going to sea when they are bigger. After they are weaned, she quickly mates and leaves so that she can feed herself up to maintain and grow her new calf for next year.

The courtship and mating were spectacularly violent and even bloody. Powerful displays of aggression between the bulls occasionally degenerated into vicious maulings of each other, but the males were no more kind to their females. All that struggle and still there is no guarantee that the resulting offspring would survive, with one in ten at Donna never making it; although even this is still twice as good an average as other sites achieve, but sad enough.

Fortunately recent seasons appear to have been pretty successful and for those few days at least, it is a pleasure to watch the tenderness that exists between mother and pup. She is at least around to fend of clumsy bulls and touchy neighbours until the pup has found its flippers and can get around on its own.

Donna Nook is not the most appealing of settings, with its bomb targets, hoards of visitors and rather drab environment, but the seals themselves are surprisingly engaging creatures and I left vowing to return. There is something of the legendary siren about their plaintive call that draws you in and it isn’t hard to appreciate why sailors that were too close to fog-bound sandbanks would associate the siren’s song with imminent disaster.