When ashore and not competing with
each other and when they don't have pups, elephant seals gather in groups called
"pods". Pods are
extremely smelly places. If the wind is towards you, you know you are coming up
to an elephant seal pod long before you see it!
A
diet largely consisting of squid that is caught during feeding dives usually of
200 - 400m but sometimes up to 1500m doesn't do anything for the digestive
system or your breath.
Most of the
time pods are quite fairly restful places in a constant snoring and guttural
noise sort of way, but every now and then one of the inner most seals decides it
wants to go to sea. A tonne or more of seal lumbering across his sleeping
companions causes quite a commotion.
Elephant
seals spend only a small amount of their time on land. Ashore they are
cumbersome and great lumbering beasts, in the water like many aquatic animals,
they become lithe and graceful with the blubber that made them ungainly on land
becoming essential as insulation.
Photo; © Paul Ward - Pentax equipment,
100mm
lens, 35mm film, K64.
This picture may not be copied or used in any manner without
prior written permission.
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