Seals in the UK: getting to know these amazing marine mammals

Seals in the UK: who lives on our shores

The UK is home to two species of seal, grey seals and harbour seals, sometimes known as common seals. Both species haul out of the water regularly. Resting on beaches, sandbanks or rocks is a normal and essential part of seal life, for adults as much as for pups.

Telling the difference between grey seals and harbour seals becomes easier once you know what to look for. Grey seals are the larger of the two, with longer, more angular heads and a distinctive sloping nose. Particularly noticeable in adult males. Their faces can appear almost dog-like in profile.

Common seals are smaller and more compact, with rounder heads, shorter snouts and a softer, more cat-like expression. When hauled out, grey seals often hold their heads higher off the ground. While harbour seals in the UK tend to rest flatter, with a more tucked-in posture.

Coat patterns can vary widely in both species

Greys often have more irregular blotches. Whereas harbour seals usually show finer, more evenly spaced spots. Size, head shape and posture together are usually the most reliable clues when watching seals along the UK shoreline. Here’s a summary of the key features to look for when trying to identify seals.

Grey seal

• Larger and heavier-bodied than harbour seals
• Long, sloping head with a pronounced Roman nose
• Adult males often have a very angular, horse-like profile
• Tends to hold head higher when hauled out
• Coat pattern usually irregular blotches and patches

Harbour seal (common seal)

• Smaller and more compact in build
• Shorter, rounder head with a dog-like expression
• Snout appears shorter and less pronounced
• Often rests flatter to the ground when hauled out
• Coat pattern typically finer, with evenly spaced spots

When seal pups are born and why timing matters

Seal pup season varies by species and by location around the UK.

Grey seal pups are typically born in autumn and early winter. Peak pupping occurs from September through November, particularly in areas such as the Farne Islands, the Isle of May and parts of the Scottish UK coastline.

Harbour or common seal pups are usually born in late spring and early summer. From June through July, with regional variation across England, Scotland and Wales.

This variation matters. The age of a pup, the time of year and the local population all influence what behaviour is normal.

Why seals rest on land and why mothers leave

All seals haul out to rest, conserve energy and regulate body temperature. This is a ritual behaviour that seal both pups and adults honour. It is a pretty amazing experience to witness seal colonies across the UK hauled out doing seal things!

When you’re witnessing a seal colony these moments can feel utterly awe inspiring. Though if you encounter a seal on its own it can feel unsettling to find a wild animal, perhaps close to human space. It can raise questions about whether the welfare of the animal is something to be concerned about.

Seal mothers often leave their pups on shore while they head out to sea to forage. These foraging trips can last many hours. Especially if they hauled out at high tide, the seal pup may be some distance from the water. During this time, the seal pup may appear completely alone, but the mother is usually nearby. Returning when the tide returns back up the beach or UK coastline to high tide.

However, if the pup hauled out on a beach where people frequent, human disturbance, noise or dogs can prevent mothers from returning, sometimes for extended periods. This is why it is vital to give a seal pup a lot of space on the beach, particularly between the pup and the water, so if the mother returns, nothing is blocking her view of the pup. It is vital to never go up or try and return the seal to water. What looks like help can inadvertently separate a pup from its mother and have grave impacts on its survival.

The most protective action anyone can take with a seal that is hauled out is to give it space. Maintaining a significant distance from it and ask others in the area to do the same.

How to read seal behaviour with care

Observation is a skill that asks us to slow down rather than react.

A healthy resting seal or pup will often appear calm. Sleeping, stretching or lifting its head occasionally to look around. It will usually remain in the same area between tides.

Signs that may indicate a seal needs assessment include repeated loud calling over long periods, obvious injury, visible emaciation or entanglement. As well as a seal pup wandering far inland away from the UK shoreline. The places some seal pups have been found in the UK is absolutely flabbergasting, making it up ramps off the beach, perhaps into the edges of coastal towns and villages!

Storms can complicate things. Young seals may become separated from their mothers during rough weather and appear on beaches underweight or exhausted. In these cases, intervention by experienced responders may be necessary.

No single sign tells the whole story. Context, behaviour, timing and environment all matter.

Knowing how to read what we are seeing matters. If the seal is in distress, some basic knowledge can make the difference between protecting a seal’s chance of survival and unintentionally causing harm.

Through my work as a volunteer Marine Mammal Medic with British Divers Marine Life Rescue, I have learned that care often begins not with action, but with stillness. Quiet observation at a distance, to understand more about the seal’s behaviour and whether it is simply resting or if has hauled out because it is in need of help.

When to step back and when to call for help

Many seal call-outs do not result in rescue, and that is a good thing. Often, the role of responders is simply to protect a seal from disturbance, ensuring people and dogs keep their distance so the animal does not waste vital energy panicking or returning prematurely to the sea.

This is where organisations like British Divers Marine Life Rescue play a crucial role. Trained volunteers assess situations, provide advice and coordinate rehabilitation when genuinely needed.

Seal pups that are prematurely separated from their mothers, particularly those that are underweight, injured or disorientated, may be lifted from the beach and taken into rehabilitation. These interventions are carefully considered and guided by experienced teams.

If you find a seal or marine mammal in distress call British Divers Marine Life Rescue on 01825 765546 – the hotline is open 24/7 every single day of the year. You can find out more about what to do over on BDMLR’s ‘what to do if’ page here.

Seals, independence and early separation

Seals separate permanently from their mothers at a relatively young age. For grey seals, this can be after just a few weeks. Harbour seals can wean earlier still.

This is why the first few weeks of nutirtion from the pup’s mother are so critical. Mothers nurse their pups on land. Building up a thick layer of fat that will help them regulate body temperature and survive once they enter the sea. During this period, it is completely normal for pups to be left alone on the beach while their mothers forage at sea. These resting periods can last many hours, sometimes an entire tidal cycle, and are an essential part of early development.

Understanding this helps us hold two truths at once. Many pups we see alone are exactly where they should be. Some, however, genuinely need support. Discernment is the key.

What seals teach us about belonging and transformation

Across coastal cultures, seals have long been seen as beings who move effortlessly between worlds. They inhabit both earth and sea, lives lived in deep connection with the ever changing tides. This ability to live between worlds has made them powerful symbols of liminality, reminding us that identity is not fixed, but fluid, responsive and shaped by relationship.

In folklore, the selkie speaks to this duality most clearly. Seal beings who shed their skins to walk on land, only to feel an enduring pull back to the ocean, selkies carry stories of longing, memory and the ache of belonging. They remind us that denying a core part of who we are creates grief. True wholeness comes from honouring all the places we come from.

Spiritually, seals invite us to soften. To trust cycles. To move with intuition rather than force. Their lives are shaped by tides, seasons and light.

Seals move seamlessly between stillness and motion, trusting the ebb and flow that carries them. Rest is not separate from survival or readiness, it is part of the same living cycle. In this way, seals remind us that pause is not a break from life, but a deep alignment with it, an act of listening to the wider rhythms that hold and support us all.

Seals teach us that care begins with attentiveness. That transformation does not require abandonment of self, but remembrance. And that belonging is not something we earn, it is something we return to, again and again, when we listen closely enough to the call of the water.

Ethical encounters with seals in the wild

Some of the most powerful seal encounters happen when we meet them on their own terms. Not from a place of pursuit, but from curiosity, patience and respect for their autonomy and their environment.

In the UK, there are a handful of places where ethical, well-led encounters allow us to witness seal behaviour without disrupting it. Around Lundy Island, trips with Kittiwake Charters offer the chance to snorkel with seals in clear Atlantic waters, where young seals often approach out of curiosity, spiralling, blowing bubbles and observing us as much as we observe them. At Skomer Island, Celtic Deep run trips rooted in deep ecological knowledge and restraint, ensuring seals are never chased, cornered or encouraged to behave unnaturally.

Closer to home along the Kent coast, trips with Stuart at Go2Sea from Ramsgate Harbour offer a meaningful way to connect with marine life. These journeys are shaped by tides, weather and local knowledge, creating space for respectful observation of the colony resident at the mouth of the River Stour, where it meets the sea at Pegwell Bay.

What all of these experiences share is a commitment to ethical practice

No close approaches, no feeding, no blocking access to water and no pressure for an interaction to happen. When in the water if seals choose to approach, it is because they feel safe or curious to and they lead the encounters. When they do not, we respect that boundary.

Snorkelling with seals, when done ethically, can be a lesson in consent and curiosity. Seals are intelligent and playful, but they are also wild. Encounters work best when we remain still, calm and responsive, allowing the seal to dictate distance and duration. Often, the most memorable moments come from doing very little at all.

These experiences deepen our understanding of seal behaviour and reinforce an important truth. Wild connection does not come from control or closeness, but from respect. When we meet seals with patience and humility, we are invited into a brief, wordless exchange that leaves both worlds intact.

Why some seals in Pegwell Bay and the River Stour appear orange or brown

If you spend time around Pegwell Bay or along the mouth of the River Stour, you may notice that some seals appear unusually orange, rust-coloured or brown rather than the familiar grey or mottled tones we often associate with seals. This colouring can look striking. For those unfamiliar with the area, even concerning. In reality, it is a natural and localised phenomenon.

The colouring comes from the sediment-rich waters of the River Stour and surrounding estuary. Pegwell Bay is heavily influenced by tidal flow through mudflats, saltmarsh and estuarine channels, where fine silts and iron-rich clays are constantly stirred and redistributed. When seals haul out or swim through these waters, particularly at low tide or during strong tidal movement, the sediment can coat their fur.

As seals dry out on sandbanks, mudflats or UK beaches

The iron oxide sediment stains their coats, giving them a warm orange, ochre or brown appearance. Over time, the colour fades as the seal returns to clearer water. Shedding the sediment naturally through movement and moulting. It is not permanent and does not harm the animal.

This colouring is most commonly seen in harbour seals, which are frequent users of estuarine environments and shallow coastal waters. Pegwell Bay and the River Stour provide important resting and foraging habitat, especially during periods between tides. The stained coats are simply a visible trace of the places these seals spend their time.

Seeing these colour shifts is a reminder that seals are not separate from their environment. Their bodies carry the imprint of the landscapes and waters they move through. In Pegwell Bay, the river quite literally leaves its mark, a quiet signature of belonging rather than a sign of distress.

As with all seal encounters in the UK, the presence of unusual colouring does not indicate a problem. Observation, context and behaviour matter far more than appearance alone.

Returning responsibility to relationship

Encounters with seals ask something subtle of us. The ask us to remember that we are in this moment in relationship. They invite us to slow our pace, widen our awareness and trust that wild lives are shaped by rhythms of nature that we have become so disconnected to.

When we learn to read the UK shoreline with care, to understand rest as part of survival and stillness as part of strength, we begin to meet seals on their own terms. We stop trying to fix what is not broken and start recognising when help is genuinely needed.

This is where ethical encounter, guardianship and advocacy meet. In knowing when to step back, when to stand guard quietly and when to call on those trained to respond. In accepting that care does not always mean closeness, and that respect often looks like distance.

Seals remind us that belonging is found in relationship with the wild and is something we practise, again and again, through listening, patience and respect.

When we meet them this way, not as problems to solve or moments to consume, but as fellow beings moving through shared coastal space, something shifts. We begin to remember how to live alongside nature, rather than over it. And that remembering, quiet as it is, matters more than we might realise.

Support marine mammal rescue

British Divers Marine Life Rescue is a volunteer-led charity responding to marine mammals in distress around the UK coastline, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Their work depends entirely on donations, training and the willingness of people to care enough to act thoughtfully.

If this post has helped you understand seals a little more, or reminded you of the quiet responsibility we all share when encountering wildlife, you might consider supporting BDMLR’s work.

Your donation helps fund rescue equipment, rehabilitation, training and the rapid response that gives seals and other marine mammals the best possible chance of survival.

Donate to British Divers Marine Life Rescue
https://bdmlr.org.uk/donate

Caring well for the wild often begins with knowledge, and continues through collective support.

→ Click here to explore more about my work with marine mammals.