looduskalender.ee

 

 

The Latin name is derived from Old Greek, meaning “hook-nosed sea hog“.

 

The dense snowfall and a few degrees of cold create an ice soup in the shore water that is quietly borne out into the Baltic by the easterly wind. The seals that have been lying about on the beach prefer to get into the water.

 

The length of the old and large females that are seen on the shore can reach up to two and a half metres, and the weight of female seals is just under two hundred kilos, depending on size. These large mammals live to an age of up to thirty to forty years, the females become mature at about five years old.

 

The large eyes of the grey seals are adapted to seeing in sea water muddied by storms as well as under a thick ice cover. An attentive viewer will have noticed that seals lack external hearing organs – ears – but the internal hearing organ is ultra- sensitive. For orientation the extremely sensitive whiskers and nose also help, the animals use them as a sonar.

 

The weather is turning colder, with an easterly wind the seawater level will fall; perhaps we will see shore ice forming.