Sea Lion Island, Falklands, Monday 31st October 

Another early morning start with a sunrise although having learnt that the Orca's aren't early risers, we were there at 6am and not sunrise.

Sunrise over the North East Point of the island.

A male Elephant seal bellowing at the morning sun rise surrounded by the smaller females with a pup between him and the camera.

Nothing seemed to be happening on the east or Elephant Beach so we trekked across the narrow neck of land to the west beach. Was God a penguin? Gentoo penguins appearing to walk on water; in actuality the water was very shallow and they preferred to walk rather than swim.

A view along the west beach

A gull sending on the beach

One of the scientists who monitored the elephant seals. They were there day and night in their green jackets and back trousers. But this particular person had suffered the on shore strong wind all night in pursuit of science.

whilst we weren't at Elephant Beach we had missed two events. A couple of Orca's had came right into the surf and had attacked a female seal who had luckily escaped. However the next female wasn't so lucky and orca's had attacked and killed a female. We knew from reports from the scientists that these attacks had happened but you just have to be lucky to be there at the tie to get the photo.

I had asked Mickey whether he could show us some sea lions on a beach that we could access rather than looking down from a cliff and he did his best to take us to some potential sites. 

A stripy bird and I can't remember the name but without the book to identify it., I am at a loss, hence stripy bird.

We drove to the far end of the island to where supplies by boat are brought ashore in a naturally cut gulley into the cliffs where a dock and a goods elevator had been installed.

On the cliffs above the waves in this sheltered space were a couple of pairs of Rock Cormorants

Climbing down the cliffs and walking along the beach we found a few sea lions but they sought the safety of the sea rather than pose for us.

We waited near where we had seen the sea lions to return and whilst they watched us from the surf, they didn't venture back onto the rocks so we retreated.

Scurvy Grass, a local source of vitamin C and not unpleasant to eat, both the flowers and the leaves are edible but by far the best bit was the stem that was almost tasty. 

A seal that hauled itself too far up the beach and never returned to sea.

We walked down a valley down towards the beach where we were told that there may be sea lions. We saw an elephant seal but along the shore through binoculars we also saw some seals, well camouflaged against the rocks.

 From experience the seals are easily disturbed and so I led Fran and two Swiss travellers that we had met, Roland and Irene, through the tussac grass above the cliffs to come out silently above the resting sea lions.

But something suddenly alerted them to our presence and the adults scattered heading towards the sea. We waited patiently for them to return, watched by a caracara with beautiful plummaage.

Eventually a mother hesitantly swam near the shore, and took her time to look about and retreated several times until she was sure that everything was okay. She reunited with her own pup but also scared off another pup that she did not recognise.

Fran and I had our photographs and retreated to leave the sea lions in peace, whilst Roland and irene settled down to a quiet picnic lunch to see whether h=they could get any more photos. We watched from a point along the beach and could see that the sea lion knew that they were still there somewhere.

Meanwhile we left the sea lions to explore further along the beach to find a young sea lion, some blue irrisdescent seaweed  and a heron fishing amongst the rock pools of low tide.

We walked back towards the Sea Lion Lodge Hotel, seen off in the distance but couldn't resist a diversion.

 Here is the resting place of Susan Whitley, one of the three civilians killed during the 1982 conflict, regrettably by British artillery fire on Port Stanley whose shells were affected by the strong local wind.She was born in Britain but in her late twenties and married to the local vet and worked as a teacher and anyone who has spent more than a year in the Falklands becomes an honoury citizen of the islands. She liked this particular island and her surviving then husband sort fit to bury her here. The grave site had recently been weeded by a group of school children as per an article in the Penguin Times.

The other two civilian casualties were Doreen Bonner and Mary Ann Goodwin, both local islanders and over a decade older than Susan.

Whilst walking across the open countryside and through the grass, I almost stepped on this Megalomanic Snipe's nest as it was so well camouflaged until it left it's nest. Luckily there were no Caracara about and after I was a safe distance away, it returned to it's nest. 

We were making our way across country for yet another look at the elephant seals although we knew we would not be alone as the scientists were there in force, tagging and naming the pups as they had left their Land Rover at the end of the track.

A fat male lounging on the beach.

 We had sat down quietly but were still fascinating to the local Caracaras.

 The pups were still cuddly wit those large dark eyes.

 And out to sea the Orca's continue to prowl.

Lastly, it promised to be a good sunset (and we had met the chef last night looking for a good sunset and trying to serve the guests) so we had an early evening supper and headed off to the West End of the island to watch the sunset and lots of sunset atmospheric photos.