Sealing the deal

Hiya! (David Steel)

Welcome to the world little fella (David Steel)

A new born pup on Staple Island (David Steel)

The twins suckling with mother - and a nice blue colour marking (Graeme Duncan)

One of the twins up close (David Steel)

Thursday 1st November comments: Today we welcomed the start of another month on the Farne Islands and we were up early, once again, counting the new born pups on the islands. Each day now brings increasing numbers, as we enter the peak period for Grey Seal pup births. Plenty of mothers are now suckling young and bulls continue to defend territories vigorously. At the end of play today, we now have an impressive 662 pups on the islands including:

South Wasmes 240

North Wames 200

Staple Island 127

Brownsman 88

Others 7

Total: 662

The twins on Brownsman are still doing well, both being suckled by the mother, so we have high hopes that both will survive to an independent age (about 25 days). On the bird front, the Great Skua remains present for its third day and appears to be feeding well, whilst Little Auks remain resident around the islands.