TSC: middle of the day

Elephant seals hanging out at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery.

Over 17,000 elephant seals live on this 6-mile stretch of beach. While they spend most of their time at sea, each seal spends about a month at a time at the rookery twice a year - birthing/breeding in winter, molting in spring/summer. The newly-hatched pups hang around for a couple of months after breeding season learning to swim, and the juveniles come back in the fall to rest and practice fighting before the adults come to claim their territory for the next season. January is the busiest time of the year.

These pups are at most a few days old; from all the noise and the kerfuffle with the seagulls (who aparently like to clean up the mess) at least two others were born while we were there.

www.elephantseal.org

(better bigger on black)