Marine & Coastal

Grey seal & Common seal

Latin name: Halichoerus grypus

Length: Up to 208cm Weight: Up to 233kg

Where: Loch Long; Loch Goil

When: All year round

Common seal

Latin name: Phoca vituluna

Length: Up to 185cm Weight: Up to 130kg

Where: Loch Long; Loch Goil; Balloch end of Loch Lomond in summer

When: All year round

The grey seal’s Latin name means ‘hook-nosed sea-pig’ – and if you can remember that you will always be able to tell them apart from their snub-nosed cousins, the common seals.

You can see both kinds of seal in Loch Long and Loch Goil. They often haul out on the rocky skerries just offshore. Sometimes they even turn the tables on us, and come people watching. If you’re playing on the beach look out for their whiskery snouts bobbing in the waves when they can’t resist peeking back at the curious watchers.

In Scotland some people believed they were ‘selchies’. These were seals that could transform themselves into men and women - who would fall in love with mortals, produce children but then be forced to return to the sea, leaving their loved ones behind to mourn them.

Seals are now a much commoner sight than in those days. Numbers of grey seals have rocketed in Britain since the beginning of the 20th century, when an Act of Parliament was passed to protect them because it was believed there were only a few hundred left in the UK.

We now have half the world population around our shores, and this is the species you are more likely to see. Besides their more dog-like head shape grey seals are much bigger than commons, and have their pups in late autumn, while the commons give birth in early summer.common seal

Common seal pups have to be able to swim hours after they are born, as many are born on intertidal mud flats. Because of this their coats are sleek and dark. Grey seals pups are born above the high tide line, and don’t have to take to the water until three weeks after they are born. They have soft, almost downy white coats to keep them warm in the chill autumn storms.

Once at sea seals are superbly adapted to cope with the marine environment. Their torpedo-like shape makes them excellent swimmers and also helps them retain heat because of their small surface area to size ratio. Beneath their warm fur coat is a layer of blubber up to 62mm (2.5inches) thick.

One of the reasons seals are not often spotted in the water is that they spend up to 80% of their time submerged, with average dive times up to eight minutes — coming up for air just for one minute. In emergencies they can stay down for up to 30 minutes!

Latin name: Somateria mollissimaMale and female eider ducks

Length: 50-71cm Wingspan: 80-108cm

Where: Loch Long; Loch Goil

When: All year round

There are a number of things that make eiders special. For a start they are the UK’s heaviest duck. Big males can weigh in at over 6lb (2.9kg), almost twice as much as a mallard drake. Then they are the world’s fastest bird in level flight, reaching speeds of up to 47mph (76km/h). But for many they are special because they must count as one of our most striking and beautiful birds. Even from a distance the males look as smart as paint with their black and white plumage. But look closer, maybe through binoculars, and you will see that the nape of their necks is not white but actually a pale pistachio green, while their chests are flushed with a delicate, flamingo pink.

Though at first glance the females look drab and brown, close-up views reveal tortoiseshell colours and intricate patterns in their feathers – designed to help camouflage them while they sit on their shallow nests. Beneath the feathers on their breasts is soft, warm down, which they pluck to line their nests, keeping the eggs and young snug and warm. People have also used this down over the centuries for the same reason, gathering it after the nests are abandoned to stuff bed covers and pillows. We have never seriously farmed the birds in Scotland, but they do in Iceland.

You most often see eiders bobbing in rafts just offshore, where they dive for mussels and other crustaceans on the shallow seabed. If you see a female with a surprisingly large brood of chicks she may well be an ‘auntie’ – eider females share childcare duties by gathering their chicks in crèches to allow the other mothers to go off to feed.

Red-throated diverRed-throated diver

Latin name: Gavia stellata

Gaelic name: Learga ruadh

Length: 53 – 69cm Wingspan:106 – 116cm

Where: On Loch Long and Loch Eil in winter; on some small inland lochs in summer

When: Most likely to see them at the coast in winter

Black-throated diver

Latin name: Gavia arctica

Gaelic name: Learga dubh

Length: 58 – 73cm Wingspan: 110 – 130cm

Where: On Loch Long and Loch Eil in winter

When: Most likely to see them at the coast in winter

These enigmatic birds spend most of their lives on water, and in winter you can often see small rafts of them haunting the coastal waters of Loch Long and Loch Eil.Black-throated diver

In summer small numbers of red-throated divers breed on islets in the high lochans of the National Park, the only time they venture out of the water. They are as ungainly on land as they are graceful in the water, tottering to the nests that they make as close to the shoreline as possible. The downside of this tactic is that summer floods can wash away the nests and the eggs with them. Black-throated divers prefer larger lochs for their nests.

It’s easier to tell the two species apart in their summer plumage. The red-throats acquire a ruddy-brown patch on their dove-grey necks, while the black-throats look military smart with their black and zebra-striped necks. At other times of year it’s harder to distinguish them, though once heard the red-throated diver’s wailing call is unmistakeable. This has earned the bird its northern nickname of ‘rain goose’. People say the bird only calls in this way when it is going to rain – but perhaps that’s a pretty good bet in northern Scotland!