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Not surprisingly, these are big animals at 1,100 pounds. The large size no doubt helps conserve body heat. They eat fish, squid and whatever else they can catch. But generally they don't prey on penguins, which might be why this one had lots of feathered friends nearby.
Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls. Those enormous fins must give them quite an advantage in the water. They can dive 2,000 feet and hold their breath for more than an hour.
A Weddell seal climbs through chunks of ice to reach the rocky beach where it quickly falls asleep. While fur seals can be aggressive, Weddell seals are docile and pay little attention to people.
The volcanic rocks of Antarctica provide a pillow for this sleeping seal. Weddell seals are named for the ship captain who hunted them. Imagine being named for the person whose lifelong ambition was to murder you. Time for a name change?
A seal shows off its sharp teeth. They use their teeth to scrape open breathing holes in the ice during the long winter.
For a second, I thought this was a leopard seal lurking in the breakers just off the beach. It's just a curious Weddell checking me out. These seals make truly baffling chirps underwater. These vocal pulses can descend in pitch like a deteriorating computer signal. Weird.
On a snowy morning in Antarctica, I spent some time photographing this Weddell snoozing on the black sand beach. I love the snowflakes contrasting with that dark background. The seal never woke up while we were exploring this stretch of the Antarctic mainland. The seal shared the beach with a few gentoo penguins (there's always a gentoo!) and a couple cooperative chinstrap penguins that let me take some nice portraits. What a fantastic day.
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