MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 11/13/2018 Monk Seal Dailies (part 1)

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

11/13/2018 Monk Seal Dailies (part 1)

Today's dailies are brought to you by Lesley, Team Billand and Melody. Lesley's complete Ka'ena Update is part 2 of the dailies.

Team Billand had a busy day, in spite of them having appointments today they still were out there finding seals. Their first find today was the beautiful miss Pohaku RO28. She was on the rocks with the sun shining on her. Alone and in peace, her broken O tag and natural bleach on hind flipper were all visible.

Next find was a double, they found Kekoa Alii RK72 was on the lower rocks alone and his tags were showing. Then to the right was Ka'ale RH32 alone on his rocks, looking large, healthy and clean coat. Team Billand was happy to find him away from the outfall.

(We'll come back to these two in a minute)

After leaving these two boys Team Billand found the little Kauai Girl RH92 still hanging out on the west side. Seems she likes us here on Oahu, or she's waiting for a travel buddy to make the trip home.
Her facial scars, tags, and natural bleach mark on her right rear area, AND her right fore-flipper scar. When they rechecked later in the after she was still there.

Okay back to the boyz Kekoa and Ka'ale.... Team Billand returned to the site to check on them and were delighted to find there was a third seal with them. Turns out it was Kawena RH96 36/37 on the lower rocks. She is small compared to Kekoa, but she was just fine hanging out with him. According to Barbara Kawena has been out there before, but it is for sure rare. Her tags and N6 applied bleach were clearly visible. Team Billand did bump into Melody and Melina at the site.

So speaking of Melody she had spent some time with Kekoa and Kawena (and not realizing Ka'ale was off to the side until Team Billand returned in the afternoon). Melody observed some cute interaction between Kekoa and Kawena. When Melody first arrived on site she initially saw the larger seal who turned out to be Kekoa. At the time she didn't realize there was a smaller seal in water just below him. The little seal (juvenile in size) made it's way over by Kekoa and he joined the little one in the water. They spent some water time swimming around and then went over to the cove together. The juvenile tried to make its way up the rocks but was having a rough time. Kekoa actually tried to help by putting his muzzle on her hind end and pushing. That didn't work out so well in that she fell back into the water on top of Kekoa. They played around some more and then the little girl made her way around the cove and found an easier way up to the lower rocks. Kekoa followed her. This little female juvenile was ID'd by her tags H37 Kawena. Melody called the seals into the hotline.
Later in the afternoon when Team Billand arrived they confirmed how rare it is to see Kawena away from the eastside, and they also pointed out Ka'ale hanging out nearby. I can only imagine how cool it was to see them in action.

Then at sunset Melody headed down to the beach near her home for her evening pictures, and there was Rocky RH58, resting comfortably. She ID'd her by the natural bleach on her LFF. Melody set up a perimeter and called her into the hotline. When she left Rocky was still resting comfortably.

Pohaku