shewhomust: (Default)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2006-02-13 09:28 am
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More wildlife

February 13th is an anniversary for us, and we observe it after a fashion. Since there was work to be done yesterday, we did it, and went out walking today instead, west along the Tyne from Newburn.

Seal on the Tyne
It was [livejournal.com profile] durham_rambler who spotted it: I was too busy watching my feet on the path, which is narrow and muddy at that point. When we walk along the coast, he is often the one who sees seals, but they usually turn into round boulders or diving birds when we look more closely. This one definitely was a seal, solitary on its slab of rock near the river bank. It didn't seem entirely comfortable, but fidgeted as we watched - or perhaps it was just getting a better look at us, too. Certainly, when we walked past it, and then stopped to look back, it turned round so it could still see us. The water was quite low around its stone, but we were a little way above the tide stone, so it hadn't been stranded by the falling tide.

Eventually we moved on, up the hill to Heddon-on-the-Wall. There were snowdrops in the woods, and there was Hobgoblin beer in the pub, and of course there was the Wall at Heddon, but the seal had upstaged them all. Back at Newburn, [livejournal.com profile] durham_rambler told the Warden we'd seen a seal, and she said that they are becoming more common as the Tyne gets cleaner; but ours had been unusually far upstream.

(Anonymous) 2006-02-13 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
And I saw a deer too, but about 300 metres off and it moved out of sight very quickly. There are also supposed to be red squirrels but we did not see any. But there were lots of ducks.

[identity profile] durham-rambler.livejournal.com 2006-02-13 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Er, that was me but I forgot to log in.
sovay: (Default)

[personal profile] sovay 2006-02-13 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
That is a great photograph.

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2006-02-14 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you. I thought of you, obviously...
sovay: (Rotwang)

[personal profile] sovay 2006-02-14 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you. : )