The elephant seals are beginning to gather on Davis Beach. They’ve found a quiet spot up the back, away from the sewerage outfall pipe and the noise of the quad bikes, and are slowly but surely building up a nice nest of snot, shit and skin for themselves to snuggle up into. They lie parallel and overlapping like sausages, and when the ennui gets too great, one will flip a paw lazily over its head and scratch. The resulting vibration of blubber will travel in a fat-wave along the entire row to the seal at the opposite end, reflect Newton's-Cradle-like, and travel back along the row to shake the initiator.

Weddell seals may be as cute as puppy dogs, but they are like Hollywood child-actors – adorable, but all blending into one. Elephant seals, on the other hand, are like the Cheshire Cat. They have grins that cut their entire head in two, they’re slightly eccentric, and they have no pretence at trying to be warm and fuzzy. Every single one is immediately and uniquely identifiable. The ugly snotty one that looks like a rhinoceros; the one that looks like a British skinhead; the short stumpy white one that drools and sleeps ecstatically, as if it’s dreaming of fish. The one with too much energy that attacks all the icebergs. The slightly ironic one who, if human, would most certainly be a fan of Kurt Vonnegut.

We skirted around them, observing the five-metre rule. They opened their eyelids. They shut them again. Our fingers froze. We left them in peace.

Elephant Seals in all their glory

Weddell Seal in the midnight sun

Seals weren't the only animals on the beach. Giant Petrels sat on the sand or dived in the shallows. Giant Petrels are the largest of the petrel family and can kill birds as large as King Pengins for food. My wildlife guide says that "watching blood-stained Giant Petrels squalling and fighting over a blood-stained seal carcass is not for the faint-hearted." I have to take their word for it.

Fluttering around them on the water surface were the tiny Willies, or Wilson's Storm Petrels. A lot of people have an almost mystical fascination with these birds - sailors used to think that they came to the water to collect the souls of dead seamen. The name 'petrel' was actually earned due to their surface-dancing behaviour: it means 'little Peter', the disciple who walked on the water with Jesus.

Willies are the most abundant seabird in the world - and also the lightest, weighing only about 40 grams. Amazingly, they fly from the northern oceans to Antarctica every year; they still manage to look and act so happy. We were astounded when we met two Willies in the middle of the antarctic desert, 150 km into the white wasteland when we had our first attempt at digging out a Narod. In the middle of all that infinite lifelessness, two birds appeared like butterflies, checked out what we were doing, and disappeared.

Giant Petrels, with two Wilson's Storm Petrels at top right

Comparative shoe size: human / giant petrel