RUTLAND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

22nd November

Donna Nook

If you wish to obtain weekly figures for the number of seals and pups at Donna Nook these can be found on the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust website.

Visit www.lincstrust.org.uk/reserves/nr/map.php

Then click on number 15 on the map to access details about Donna Nook including seal numbers.

The number of visitors to this reserve can make the weekends very busy indeed with the local "burger van" available to provide refreshments.

Although the general public have restricted access with fencing and warning signs it is obvious the seals go where they want.

A beautiful sunny morning greeted 16 members of the R.N.H.S. as they met at Donna Nook to see the wonderfully spectacular sight of hundreds of grey seals, who gather at this site in November and December each year to give birth to their beautiful white furry pups, although when the pups are first born they are a very pale lemon colour.

The reserve consists of Dunes, Slacks and Inter-tidal Areas.

The reserve supports 47 breeding bird species and has many other winter visitors such as Short Eared Owl, Hen Harrier and Shore Lark.

However it is the Grey Seal Colony which attracts the visitors in their thousands and at the time of the societies visit there were approx 840 pups, 955 cows and 340 bulls spread out across the salt marsh.

The females, who are called cows, are variously marked and coloured, (all shades of tan, brown, black and grey).

The males, who are called bulls, are huge, and can be very aggressive to each other when they are fighting for a female.

The females give birth two or three days after arriving on the beach, their very fat rich milk makes the pups put on weight very quickly, the pups will have trebled their birth weight at the end of the suckling period which lasts about 18 days.

Cows at Donna Nook do not normally leave their pups, during this period and without feeding themselves lose nearly half of their body weight,

The seals do not move very far away from this area for the rest of the year, living on a sandbank way out to sea which can be seen from the beach.

The ability to witness this spectacle at such close quarters and to listen to the “conversations” between the females and the pups is a very special experience.

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