Our first beach walk today with all the ice melted and the Strait open clear across to Prince Edward Island. I forgot the camera so no pictures but I'll get some next time. As it is if I'd have my camera I'd be posting photos of the seal we saw on the shore. Cool huh? Except it was dead so you probably wouldn't want to see. So far my ocean wildlife experiences in Nova Scotia include a baby blue whale dead on Martinique Beach and a dead seal pup on Caribou Island. Yay me.
Poor little seal was missing an important part of its anatomy ... its head. I suspect it had a sad run in with a boat propeller sometime in the last 24 hours. It was a beautiful color, a deep rich dark grey with brown spots all over and that beautiful pelt ended where it's neck should have started. It was a clean cut so I'm hoping it was a mercifully quick end - silly curious seal pups shouldn't be investigating boats with outboard motors.
Only Raimi and Archer noticed it; Archer sniffed the log it was lying next to very carefully and eventually, when he got to the seal, he stopped, took a long sniff and then backed away. Raimi caught the scent and stood looking at it for some time with wrinkles deeply furrowed into his head. In the end he backed away without going near and promptly forgot about it. Leeloo and Esme never noticed it at all.
I stood for a moment looking down on this life cut short, speculated on what a live seal might look like, thought about the little seal life it would have led, apologized to it for the tragic end it met at the hands of human mechanics and then me and my 'colony' walked back along the beach to the truck.
I'm sure if I live here long enough I'll eventually see a live ocean dweller, but it would mean getting on the water to do so and I can't see that happening anytime soon. Guess washed up dead things will have to do.
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