It’s a given that I am fairly obsessed with birds, but occasionally other groups of animals get a look in. Today it was my first ever harbour seal I have seen around Crail. Harbour or common seals are the other British seal species, that used to be more common on the East coast thirty years ago. When I first came to St Andrews twenty years ago, there were hundreds that hauled out at the tip of West Sands. There are none there now and there are only a hundred or so in the inner Forth. Their strongholds are the west of Scotland, the Northern Isles and the Wash in England, and their populations are building up after a disease epidemic in 2002. But there still only a few hundred in eastern Scotland. So, a good sighting for Crail. I saw the harbour seal yesterday at Balcomie but wasn’t 100% sure because although they are easy to identify with a good view, on a bad view as yesterday, it could just be a small grey seal. Today it was hauled out on Balcomie Beach at high tide so its small size was obvious (half the size of a grey seal) and as it swam off (it spotted me first) I could see the distinctive dog-like head and V shaped nostrils. In short harbour seals look cute (big eyes and short snouts) while grey seals look a bit less so, cow-like and sad (relatively smaller looking eyes and long faces). I could also see, unfortunately, that it had a huge, old head wound. It looked like a propeller strike. It must have been horrendous, but it was mostly healed. The seal was a vigorous swimmer and the age of the injury must mean that it is now fairly healthy. I hope it is finding Balcomie a good place to recuperate.
Wild Crail 
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