Today I have been out on our land at Lumsdaine filming a piece on the grey seal breeding colony for Border TV. We were incredibly lucky with the weather; its been a beautiful, sharp, frosty day, with lots of sun and not a breath of wind - perfect for filming! And the seals didn't disappoint, it was all going on - pups suckling, pups playing, females flirting with males, mating, fighting between females and fighting between males. Fantastic! Both Emma, the presenter, and Paul, the cameraman, were suitably impressed, and I think they will have got some stunning shots. The piece was for Border Life, which will be aired sometime in January - watch this space for a date nearer the time. Here's some shots to give you a flavour of the day. Liza.

Paul gets a wide angle shot of St Abb's Head from an unusual angle

Suckling and snoozing galore...

The dark animal in the centre of the picture is a male, he will hope to mate with as many female that he can on his stretch of beach, and defend his patch if threatened by other males.

This fairly new born pup (you can tell because its still pretty skinny) spent quite a lot of time following its neighbour (who is older an fatter) round in circles and biting its back flippers. A seal version of an ankle-biter perhaps?!



All life is here! Top right, a pup that has just about moulted all is white fluffy coat. Just below it is the body of a dead, fairly newly born seal - it may have been crushed by a bull by accident, or separated from its mother in last week's storms and starved to death. At the bottom of the picture there are two healthy looking white coated pups and a snoozing female. Centre stage are a pair mating - they couple up, and lie in this embrace for up to 45 minutes.

They just about got all the shots they wanted before they lost the light - this was Emma doing the last piece to camera.