Wednesday January 1, 2025 - We took advantage of a surprise good weather day and rang in the New Year in fine form in the company of numerous seal and friendly seal watchers. Fortunately, the forecast rain cleared earlier than expected, and a cloudy day with a west wind is a setup for good seal watching, so we changed our plans and made our way to the Rome Point beach. We were rewarded with a very pleasant seal watch featuring active seals hauling out and excellent light for telescope viewing. This day also featured enough westerly wind to keep watercraft away for the first time this season, which made for a happy start to a new year of nature observation.

Update - Sat. 1/4 - The upcoming weekend will feature a favorable west wind, but somebody turned the wind machine up to high and the wind may be a bit too strong for good seal watching in the afternoon. However, Rome Point is an excellent location for a walk on a cold windy day because it is sheltered from a westerly wind, especially in the forest. We will likely take a hike to see if the seals are out between 1:30 and 2:00, with no worries about the seals being bothered on such a windy day. A west wind is tolerated well by the seals, but will usually serve to keep paddle-powered watercraft from heading out onto the bay. Another way to reduce the possibility that the seals may be spooked off the rocks before your group arrives is to be on the seal watching beach two to three hours before low tide. This tactic allows seal seekers to stay a step ahead of troublesome watercraft in most cases.

I was warned before I retired that I would find myself busily occupied with all manner of activities, and it seems that semi-retirement has indeed turned out to be a very busy time for me. So far this season, we have done less seal watching than any year since 2000, and this aspect of our current lifestyle is not to our liking. We miss our nature adventures of all types greatly, and hope that in 2025 we will find more opportunities spend more time with the seals and our seal seeking friends.

We took a look at our past seal counts back in April, as we were curious when we had last seen over 150 seals on the rocks at Rome Point. It turns out that March 27, 2021 was the last seal count that exceeded the 150 seal benchmark, and we had to go back to spring 2018 to see multiple consecutive counts of greater than 150 seals. We would assert that there are not as many harbor seals making their winter home in Narragansett Bay as there were 10 years ago, for reasons that we continue to ponder as our seal counts gradually become slightly lower each season.

The links below connect to short seal videos we posted on YouTube for your seal watching amusement.  Seal Pup Follies was recorded in Maine in June 2012 and Linebelly Rising is a short clip showing the former Rome Point kingpin climbing to the top of his favorite pointy rock.