14 days on Sable Island, 2014: day three

So I am back on Sable Island, for the annual seal catching trip. I come out here each year in June for a couple of weeks as part of my work (research scientist, Dalhousie University).

We arrived on Tuesday (10th June), unusually on the day we planned for. Weather has been good, around 10C, dry with not much wind nor fog. The island has been drier than normal with the pond in front of our house entirely dry. This means we get fewer visits from the horses since water drives their distribution on the island. Also unusually we have not yet seen any foals but haven’t spent much time looking. We have already seen quite a few different birds, including the grey kingbird, northern parula and the eastern wood-pewee.

Harbour seals were once plentiful on Sable but have declined dramatically over the past few decades; we have counted three mother-pup pairs.