Newborn seals

V-Spec

V-Spec

V-Spec

Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Posts
3,698
Location
London
My first go at shooting these georgeous creatures, really is facinating watching them being born and how they act in their first few minutes of life. After spending about 4 hours waiting for an opportunity I finally ended up getting close to some of the newborn pups, as they spend most of their time asleep or feeding with mum, it was really great to get some shots of them playing around, they're absolutley adorable.. All shot with Mk111 300F 2.8 + 2x converter.


This guy was literally 30 minutes old.

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Another one who had been drinking milk like it was going out of fashion.

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Man.. I can't stand the fighting and courtship, I just wanna chill here! :p

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Anyone got a tissue?

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I'm sick to death of huge white telescopes being pointed at me!!

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awesome captures there, first is the best by a country mile. makes me want to get to seal sands and set up camp - i'll go next week
 
Judging from your location, I'm going to be where you were this Saturday.

Lovely photos - really great. You can get close enough that you don't need 600mm, though.
 
Now they are some great shots. I have to admit, I'm totally envious. I'd be bragging about the experience and the shots for some time, and I don't mind admitting it!
 
Thanks for the comments, I shot about 500 today these are some of the ones i've found I like early on...

In terms of 600mm, I know you can get really close, but there arn't that many seals there at the moment, around 35 pups at the moment and 80% of them are on the sandbanks, and also getting the moments when they come in close can be difficult because of the grass, the last shot shows how much of a pain the grass was for close up stuff.

I plan on scaling down to 70-200 2.8 for venturing out and getting really close, last year my friend dressed up in black clothing, completley covered his 500mm F4 in black netting and just lay on the sandbanks for hours until he was surrounded by them, he got some cracking shots..

I saw 3 different cows all give birth, I'm reluctant to post those ones because they are pretty... "yucky" and quite a bit farther away. It is rather sweet seeing the pups open their eyes for the first time and learning to move around under the watchful eye of mum.

I might be going down on saturday/sunday again hoping to get near the waves to get some action shots and more bull fighting.
 
V-Spec said:
I might be going down on saturday/sunday again hoping to get near the waves to get some action shots and more bull fighting.
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Will look out for you then. :) Need to get some wellies before then though, as it's pretty muddy down there. Annoyingly, I've left my wellies and most of my waterproofs at home this term, so I'm going to have to go and find some cheap stuff tomorrow.
 
Not sure about the rules on posting such things here, but just wanted to say - I grew up about 2 miles away from Donna Nook, Lincolnshire (which is, I assume, where your quite frankly amazing photos were taken). If anyone else fancies making the trip out east, my parents run an organic B&B there - almost within walking distance of the beach. Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone wanted to go snap the seals. I don't get commission - just recommending their cooked breakfasts!

See here for B&B details:
http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/Tithe%20Farm.htm

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Seals, last year at Donna Nook

Oh, and there's some sealy information my father's page here:
http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/seals.htm

If you go, say Joe recommended it ;) They'll probably give you a pint of beer or something.
 
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Great shots V-Spec. This at Donna Nook? I went to Seal Sands on Sunday and got a few. Nothing to compete with these though. Depending on time and money, I might be heading down to Donna Nook with a few from TP. If anyone does get the chance to take shots like this, please remember to respect the wildlife. The Seals might allow you to get dead close, but this doesn't always mean you should. Using a techniques like V-Spec's friend did is good as it allows the Seals to get used to you (even though they thing your a rock or something similar) and move closer in their own time.
 
Messiah Khan said:
Great shots V-Spec. This at Donna Nook? I went to Seal Sands on Sunday and got a few. Nothing to compete with these though. Depending on time and money, I might be heading down to Donna Nook with a few from TP. If anyone does get the chance to take shots like this, please remember to respect the wildlife. The Seals might allow you to get dead close, but this doesn't always mean you should. Using a techniques like V-Spec's friend did is good as it allows the Seals to get used to you (even though they thing your a rock or something similar) and move closer in their own time.
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This is true, they do take a lot of getting used to and providing you respect them and just let them get used to you in their own time they just end up putting on a show for you, I was lucky because there were quite a few people with kids around and people who didn't really understand the delicate nature of the colony, each time a cow gave birth there was a stampede of people... luckily the shots I took were a result of pure patience with single pups, and went unnoticed by most people..
I would seriously avoid walking up to them, you're far better off finding a position and just staying there for ages and letting things happen naturally around you, its kinda cool as well because you get to see all the natural behaviour, just don't get caught up between 2 bulls...

I would also say that lighting is very very important, these things look beautiful in the golden autum/winter sunlight and contrast, but they look pretty dismal when its overcast.. if you're thinking of making a trip down i'd wait until the weather is just right.
 
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Yeah, you'll just end up frightening them off or causing some aggression from the females if you're getting too close to the pups by walking up. Crawling and rolling is generally fine, as long as you're going fairly slowly - basically, standing = human, laying = seal to them. You can spend ages getting set up with a particular seal only for one idiot to come walking into the middle and completely ruin it.
 
Messiah Khan said:
Great shots V-Spec. This at Donna Nook? I went to Seal Sands on Sunday and got a few. Nothing to compete with these though. Depending on time and money, I might be heading down to Donna Nook with a few from TP. If anyone does get the chance to take shots like this, please remember to respect the wildlife. The Seals might allow you to get dead close, but this doesn't always mean you should. Using a techniques like V-Spec's friend did is good as it allows the Seals to get used to you (even though they thing your a rock or something similar) and move closer in their own time.
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Good advice that.

The last thing that anyone wants is for someone to get too close to a pup that it's mother abandons it. That'll mean 5 intensive months of hand rearing of the pup at a seal rehabilitation centre.
 
Thanks for the comments, the pictures went off for a while earlier cause fasthosts screwed my hosting up lol...

I have heard of renegade photographers just walking through the middle of all the seals not really knowing what they're doing, its all common sense really..
Looking at the weather forecase im not sure whether or not i'll be down at the weekend, saturday is forecast rain all day and sunday doesn't look much better, so could be pretty bleak.. we'll have to wait and see..
 
ElDude said:
Fasthosts are cowboys. I'd advise moving host as soon as possible. I had no end of trouble with them.
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They;ve been brilliant so far... only problem was that i'd screwed up my payment details and they'd not reminded me that it had broken so it all got taken off air lol.. kinda 50/50 blame I guess..
 
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