Since we last blogged the science has been kicking up a gear! We’ve been on “Birth Watch” which involves long days of sitting in the hides and watching our girls to see who’s likely to pup. So far we’ve managed to film 3 live births, however it seems that the seals know how to time their births inconveniently and many give birth when we leave the hide! Quite a few old favourite mums have shown up already including: O8, Boobies, FFN, Parsley, Dancer, SM and Alien and not all have pupped yet so hopefully we’ll capture a couple of their births.
Today we went catching to weigh and measure seals in the colony. We do this so that the weights of this year’s pups can be compared to those of previous years, giving an indication of how this breeding season compares to others. In doing this we soon discovered that pups are neither small nor cuddly!!
One evening Paddy gave us a a brief history of Rona, including the story of St Ronan. St Ronan came to the island with his 2 sisters. However, after he made a comment about his sister’s “fine legs” one day, the happy trio were separated. One sister decided that relocating alone to nearby Sula Sgeir was a sensible idea under the circumstances. Later we went to find St Ronan’s “cell” in the village ruins. Having survived 1400 years of gale force winds, we were impressed by it’s sturdiness (but not about having to crawl into it!).
Next time we will be reintroducing….. Rocky IV!