I was at the mouth of the Coquihalla River where it meets the Fraser River yesterday and found this guy popping his head up every minute or so and sometimes with fish in his mouth.
Anyone able to tell me exactly what it is?


And for bonus points, what type of bird is this?

Harbour seal, check, but female Common Merganser.

That's a ways upstream for a seal!

1. Weird place for it, but looks like a harbour seal to me.

2. Merganzer w baby merganzer on its back

That is adorable!!

Harbour Seal and female with chick, Hooded Merganser.

And yes, that it quite high up river to find a seal but I have seen many in the past on log-booms on the river above New Westminister and Surrey.

Geez, I delete my post for one minute to add another line to it and three more posts come in.
Don't you people sleep and work.
This technically is my friday because I get tues. and wed. off and work through the weekends.

I agree! They started swimming directly towards the seal, and it made me a bit worried lol. Had the camera set on video just in case a fight broke out.

Thanks for the ID folks!

Not only does baby hitchhike on mommy , but so does Swimmer's Itch Big-Time on Merganzers ++++

Little itty-bitty Monsters !!!

Nice shots, Chris. Amazing that seal got so far up river... Ugly set of legs from Cambium, ugh !

K

cool shots, I've seen harbour seals way up the Skagit River when the pinks are in and it is not that uncommon. I don't think fresh water bothers them at all. I really love mergansers, most waterfowl hunters think they are a trash duck but I really love them. The hens just seem to be great mamas.

just an fyi - there is a river otter in coquitlam river now as well - around the downtown poco area. i have spotted him on several occasions - including his play ground and sleep quarters. he's about 5 feet long, give or take. check it out soon before the summer crowds scare him away.

it seems that in the last few years since they opened the spawning channel to coquitlam lake, all the wildlife is coming back.

Seals amaze me with how far upstream they'll go. I rember several years back they caught a female harbour seal IN the Chilliwack River Fish Hatchery. There had been sightings of it for about a week, so they set up a trap, finally catching the bugger in the channel. I saw it in the back of a truck, in the cage, being transported back to the ocean. Saw one at Slesse park fishing one year as well, a few years prior to the one being caught. Nobody believed us...

lol not sure we'll see Jeremy Wade filming an episode of River Monsters on these beasts.... Too damn cute!

I just came back from a break from work down at the river. I figured I'd see how high the water levels of the fraser are. The water level isn't any higher from what I can see since last night. But what I did see is another one of these creatures, this time this one had a massive head, darn near close to the size of a humans head. It must be a massive one... I've been to this area lots of times but have never seen any. I am beginning to wonder if food is perhaps scarce for these guys and they are travelling further than usual for food.

Agreed -- It`s not uncommon to see seals in our area and right up the Harrison River into Harrison Lake . Just depends on the fish runs .

Wulf