David you should have been there

David Attenborough missed himself.

I do not need to watch any more BBC nature documentaries. I have seen it in real life and it really is a feeling you want to bottle up and keep forever. We flew half an hour by helicopter to Sea Lion island to see the Elephant Seals and their pups. I did not see any Sea Lions but they are there somewhere. We were looking for them on top of a cliff and it was a bit on the windy side so we did not last long.

The sun came out as we got to the beach where the Elephant Seals were and they looked at first like giant rocks in different shades of brown. Then they moved, they had eyes and whiskers and flipped their tails about.  There was quite a lot of itching of flippers. They mostly lay napping in the sunshine. The biggest male ones were about 15ft long.

Two males got up and I thought there may be a fight but they managed to just give each other menacing looks and then rise above it and turn away sniffing noses upturned in the air. One large male seal swam around in the sea. It was a bit like the Loch Ness monster without the neck. Another couple of seals lay in the sea mating one totally squashed on top of the other and another opened its mouth and roared for a bit, then it got tired. They are quite fat and must not have a lot of energy. My daughter was a bit frightened. She was amazed at the size of them and they are quite noisy. They have a barking grunt.

A Caracara hopped along as we were eating our picnic. He had some sandwiches. I think we were quite lucky to see such a rare bird of prey. I am getting really spoilt with all the wildlife here. Oh another Caracara. I would quite like to discover a new species.

We then went to see the Penguins. Most of them were nesting, a few Penguins had wondered off and forgotten about their eggs. This happens with the younger ones. There were a few suspicious sea gulls flying overhead. The Macaroni Penguins were the most friendly. We were about 4ft away from them. We saw Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins also or it may have been Rockhoppers. Penguins can bend their heads backwards to the the point where they look headless. Respect to party trick Penguins.