14 days on Sable Island: Day 8

Today was our first day catching seals to deploy satellite transmitters and acoustic tags. There was some other work that needed to be done in the morning but in the afternoon we went out on the search for seals.

The island is 50 km long and the two beaches on either side are known as the North and South Beaches. Seals come up on to the beach to rest and can be found anywhere along the two stretches of beach. Since we are only interested in certain marked seals, we need to drive a lot of the island to find them. So, after 2 to 3 hours of driving we found and successfully caught our first seal. There were a few attempts at several others but they were in the sea before we could get to them. Tricky,…

After the seal catching I spent some time watching and recording video of a couple of horses on South Beach. I find shooting video similar to shooting stills in that its all about seeing. The difference of course, is that although you can start with something that  is appealing, you have to let go as the scene changes and transforms into something else. Sometimes it works and you get some interesting footage, but often it just flops.