Charlie and the Seal: RTÉ’s Charlie Bird Meets a Young Antarctic Seal

Irish broadcaster Charlie Bird went to Antarctica to tell the story of a polar explorer, and came home with a delightful wildlife clip, later published by RTÉ. While he was photographing the local wildlife, a young seal decided it would rather snuggle up to Charlie than pose for his camera, shuffling in until it was pressed right against him.

Who was Charlie Bird?

Charlie Bird, born in Sandymount, Dublin, in 1949, was one of the best-known faces of Irish television news. He joined the RTÉ newsroom in 1980, served as Chief News Correspondent and later as Washington Correspondent, and retired from the broadcaster in 2012. His travel series Charlie Bird Explores took him to the Amazon, the Ganges and the Arctic.

In 2021 he announced that he had motor neurone disease, and his “Climb with Charlie” campaign up Croagh Patrick raised more than €3.6 million for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association and Pieta House. He died on 11 March 2024, aged 74.

In Antarctica on the trail of Tom Crean

Bird filmed in Antarctica in 2011 for The Trail of Tom Crean, a two-part RTÉ documentary made by Crossing the Line Films for the centenary of Robert Falcon Scott’s South Pole expedition. The first journey was a voyage around the continent to historic sites linked to Crean; on the second, Bird walked the final stage to the South Pole.

Tom Crean, from near Annascaul in County Kerry, served on three great Antarctic expeditions: Scott’s Discovery (1901–04) and Terra Nova (1910–13) and Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance (1914–16). He won the Albert Medal for a 35-mile solo walk to fetch help for a dying companion, sailed in the James Caird to South Georgia and crossed that island’s unmapped mountains with Shackleton and Frank Worsley. After retiring from the Royal Navy in 1920 he and his wife Eileen opened a small pub in Annascaul, the South Pole Inn.

Why young seals come so close

The writer of the blog Why Evolution Is True identified the animals in the clip as young elephant seals. Southern elephant seals are the largest seals on Earth: adult males weigh 3,000 to 3,700 kg, while pups are born at about 40 kg and reach roughly 120 to 130 kg by the time they are weaned after about 23 days of nursing.

Young seals like these are a very different proposition from an adult bull, which can weigh more than three tonnes. South Georgia alone hosts around 113,000 breeding females, and adults dive to 400–1,000 metres to feed, with one recorded dive reaching 2,388 metres.

How to watch seals in Antarctica

Bird’s moment came on the animal’s terms, which is how the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators wants every encounter to happen. Its seal-viewing procedures set out the basics:

• Stay at least 5 metres from seals on land or ice, including pups and elephant seal weaners; give fur seals 15 metres and jousting elephant seal bulls 25 metres.
• Let the animals decide on any closer interaction, and never feed or touch them or use flash.
• Walk above seals on a beach, never between them and the sea, and do not surround or separate mothers and pups.
• Back away if a seal raises its head more than once, turns to face you or opens its mouth in a display.

For more close encounters, read Mary Marshall’s separate seal-pup encounter and Paul Nicklen’s attributed leopard-seal account.

Related reading

• Men Free A Baby Moose Who Got His Front Legs Stuck In A Fence.
• Maruyama Zoo’s Red Panda Twins in the Snow
• Da Mao in the Snow: Toronto Zoo’s Giant Panda Video
• Penguin Bloopers from Spy in the Huddle
• Animals in Snow: Winter Photographs, Food, Rest and Movement

Sources

• Video: Charlie And The Seal!, published by RTÉ.
• Laughing Squid: An affectionate seal snuggles Charlie Bird
• Why Evolution Is True: Charlie and the seals
• RTÉ Programme Sales: The Trail of Tom Crean
• Charlie Bird – Wikipedia · Tom Crean – Wikipedia · Southern elephant seal – Wikipedia
• IAATO: Operational procedures for viewing seals
• Earlier post attribution: EdisProduction. Video still: RTÉ.