Day 3: Seal Beach and Estuary Mouth, 18.01.25

Arrived from Banchory and dropped off at the beach car park by Innes at 0900 on another frosty and cold but bright morning. I headed to opposite the seal haul-out once again and decided to draw them, as the low rising sun was creating lovely shadows cast onto each another and the beach as they lay on the shore. The tide was at its lowest too, producing some nice patterns on the sand a bit like arial photos of rivers as they cut their way through the landscape from the mountains to the sea. The patterns in the sand were also replicating the shapes of the seals tails and flippers.  It isn’t until the tide is fully out that you realise just how deep the channel of the river really is. The tidal erosion of the north beach has created steep sides and shelves at some points at its deepest and some of the seals were lying on those.

I have included here an example of one of my field sketches of the seals from today and the finished worked-up painting. I thoroughly believe in field work being the fundamental aspect of wildlife art but, unfortunately, I am not talented enough to be able to produce finished pieces in the field however and I therefore use my own photographs as reference for details. I am no serious photographer though and my reference pictures are taken using only my mobile phone or a simple point-and-shoot digital camera! I will post more work-in-progress pieces as the year goes on.

It is evident among the haul-out that the seals are moulting their fur into a new waterproof coat at present, with much scratching and rubbing themselves on the sand going on. They use up a lot of energy for this process and it is a big reason why they haul-out for long periods of time. Even more important therefore that they don’t get disturbed into the sea and the north side of the beach remains out of bounds to the public.

Amongst all the scratching seals are the constant movements of up to 70 feeding sanderlings. They really do resemble little white clockwork toys, scurrying along feeding on the tideline or in between the seals at great speed! There has also been a flock of 300 or so dunlin present by the seals as the tide ebbed and flowed but they didn’t show today. Also present were 8 eider, the most I’ve seen beside the seals for a while.

Thankfully, there were no incidents of members of the public disturbing the seals or roosting birds at the haul-out today and I left cold but happy.

INNER THOUGHTS: So grateful and appreciative of being out in nature, observing and drawing it. The concentration and heightening of the senses involved, largely negating any other thoughts or of how cold it actually was! Also, as you can see, I am not doing very well on the loosening up my work front!