Today was mainly about Elephant Seals. Though we learned something about Whales and Butterflies as well. It was po
uring down rain when we set out but by the time we arrived at our first destination it was clearing up but too muddy for our bird walk. So we proceeded on up the road to a less muddy place where we found few birds but lots of young male elephant seals separating themselves from the herd to avoid confrontation with the alpha males. This one won the prize for cuteness.
After a delicious lunch and a talk about whales we proceeded to the main elephant seal rookery where we found mamas and baby’s as well as alpha males and wanna be alpha males. This first shot looks like a slumber party of females without pups.
But of course the babies are cute as can be too so here
is one to prove it. Life is harsh on the beach though and the survival rate is not high. This fellow had been nursing but stopped to take a nap. We learned that the moms do not feed while nursing and lose 450 lbs before leaving the pups to wean. A newborn pup weighs about 75 lbs and grows to 300 lbs before Mom cuts off the milk supply.
But things got pretty exciting on the beach just as we were about to leave. To Alpha males, also known as Beach Master’s got into a fight over territory. It was still going on when we had to head out to our next appointment at the Natural History Museum in Morro Bay. There we saw a video about Humpback whales before proceeding to the Embarcadero for dinner.
As if we hadn’t had a full enough day we headed back to the motel to see a video on Monarch butterfly migrations. Tomorrow will be another busy day even though our whale watching trip had to be cancelled due to dangerously high surf conditions.