The highlight of the day was the Leopard Seal encounter that played out near the station.
Early in the day, people noticed a commotion in the water about 200 meters away from the station. Turned out to be a leopard seal taking down what was probably a juvenile elephant seal. A group of people were out on a Zodiac and they manged to get some closeups of the encounter. The pictures below have been taken by Michiel who was on the zodiac.
 |
| The only picture which shows the elephant seal in the jaws of the leopard seal. |
 |
| At one point, the leopard seal lunged at the birds that were fluttering around the carcass! Very much like a leopard on land chasing away vultures! |
 |
| Towards the end of the hunt! |
 |
| All done! The leopard seems to have eaten very little of its prey! |
Later in the day, the same Leopard (most probably) floated past the station on piece of brash ice. After a hunt, these animal just rest and nap for a while to digest the food.
 |
| You can see how close it is to land! |
 |
| Scary looking animals. Looks like a stubby anaconda! |
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the leopard seal is the most agile one among all types of seals or at least better than elephant seal as their names also suggest. I bet they are excellent swimmers too.