Seal season!

Bye bye Farnes team

Second coat pup

Staple Island colony now the biggest

Brownsman seal family

Mating season!

And fighting season.

Thursday 11th December comments: The dust has settled and we are off the islands! The team made a successful escape last Saturday and celebrated another successful season on Planet Farnes. However more of that to follow…

Back to the islands and we said goodbye to the Grey Seal colonies of the islands for one last time. It’s been a very productive autumn with an even more impressive total as the islands boasted 1,651 seal pups; the highest pup total since 1971! However it’s not just the Farnes as other east coast seal colonies are reporting record numbers as Blakeney Point (Norfolk) have a staggering 2,126 pups and Donna Nook (Lincolnshire) have 1,760 pups.

Interestingly there has been a huge shift in recent years in the Farne colonies as Staple Island has become ‘number one’ nursery whilst Brownsman claimed second spot this year for the first in the modern era. The top island pup totals include;

Staple Island 492
Brownsman 408
South Wamses 389
North Wamses 227
West Wideopens 51
Northern Hares 39
Knoxes Reef 32

Over the next few weeks I’ll be bringing you a round-up of the season, from seabirds to escaping the island and much, much more so keep checking the blog!