Where the Seals Sing

A journey around the British Isles discovering the extraordinary lives of these secretive mammals. The Atlantic grey seal is globally rare – there are fewer grey seals in the world than African elephants – and Britain hosts forty per cent of this world population. Over the course of a year in their lives, Susan Richardson comes to know a colony of seals, watching as it is hit by storms in the autumn pupping season, experiencing sociable winter haul-outs and sympathising as the colony scratch and fidget through their annual moult. Several months later, she nurtures a connection with three cow seals who linger on the beach long after the rest have dispersed to their summer feeding grounds. Her engagement with the seals’ lives unfolds against the backdrop of other seasonal observations: adders sliding sidelong from hibernation, choughs foraging for beetles among spring squill and thrift, compass jellyfish navigating the bafflement of waves. Though loss, both personal and ecological, is a recurring theme, the story is a hopeful one, bursting with new life.