Night dive with Beryl at A-Frames, Finnart 22/11/07

[alexmaclennan]

Did two night dives at Finnart tonight with usual dive buddy Alan.

First dive along sloping muddy/small rocks slope between existing pier and old pier wreckage. Lots of queenies and small life. 29m max for 38 mins. 12 degrees. Viz 2-3m.

Second dive onto usual A-Frames pier wreckage when suddenly we were buzzed by Beryl. Definitely the same seal as video'd by Rusty Nuts at the Caves as the oval ?scar ?bite on her flank is easily seen. She shot under us grubbing under the long concrete pillars in our torchlight. Buzzed us intermittently for 5 to 8 minutes. 14m max for 25 mins. Same temp and viz.

alex

[stew]

thats a fair old distance between the caves & finnart, takes me about 10 minutes driving it i think??
beryl has been regularly spotted at finnart, the caves & conger alley, thats a pretty big area for what looks like a single solitary seal.
why are there no other seals?? :confused:

good blog alex, nice to know beryl lives on.

[Gord]

I've dropped an email to a chap at GU who specialises in seals (http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/adulteducation/Personnel/dmcc/index.html )

I'll post if / what he replies ...
got an out of office though until december

[Brian2]

Again on night dive 28-11-07:)
Stayed around the whole dive 45 minutes.
It was hunting in the torch light & regularly getting well within touching distance, on the A-frame, the first 20 m block & the long small blocks at 10 m.
Great dive.:)

[Fran]

I've dropped an email to a chap at GU who specialises in seals (http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/adulteducation/Personnel/dmcc/index.html )

I'll post if / what he replies ...
got an out of office though until december

good stuff Gord, knowledge is good.

[Gord]

Dominic replied to my email with the following comments:

I have a number of divers who dive with grey seals but I have never heard of any problems other than nibbled fins from curious animals. The animal you describe may be a non breeding female / male, and it is quite common to find lone individuals where there is a good source of food. The breeding males near a breeding site would be a different matter. I couldn't see the head from the u-tube video well. Males have much longer heads/noses when full grown.

So if we can get a photo of Beryl's nose then we can work out whether she's a he or not :confused: :D ... but having seen Beryl a few times myself, I would say that she seems to have a cute little round face ... perhaps we are correct in our instinctive judgement that she is female :)

[stew]

i have dived with both male & female seals, males IMHO look more dog (beagle) like in the face, more square cut snout, as opposed to Beryl who as you say Gord, more of a rounder face.

Beryl was named by Fran (2 posts above^^) a couple of years ago.
so it looks like Beryl is at least 2/3 years old.

edit:- i have the dive logged as 06/11/05 at 10am as the first time i saw Beryl in the water.
but i had seen the seal on the surface many times before.

[Fran]

Caves 6/11/05,
anyway we were returning from our dive@
8m when we had the pleasure of the company
of a grey common female seal(Beryl), She came out of the dark murkiness,
She came within inches of my reg,puffed and veered very quickly left,magnificent!...It's always good to hear of her whereabouts...
Thanks Gord for the up-date.

[Scotty Boy]

Dominic McCafferty is certainly the guy to ask about seals!! i was on a course with him in the summer and he certainly knows his stuff.

just out of interest, how do we know that this is the same seal being seen over and over again?? i know its likely that it is, but how certain is it that its the same one??

EDITED to say: just read alex's comment re the scar etc!! hope i get to meet Beryl soon!!

[Mr Flibble]

She has some distinctive scarring on her back.

[PeterM]

Is that cause she's now your new girl?

[Mr Flibble]

:D