Record Breaking Butterfly
Written by SRT volunteer Flo Hall.
It is thought to be biologically impossible for grey seals to give birth to more than one single pup and manage to wean them successfully. The only tested and confirmed case of birth twins in the wild was in November 2015 at Horsey Gap, Norfolk. One grey seal mum was seen feeding and nurturing two pups at one time. The news soon began to spread throughout the country, and people flocked to see the rare occurrence. This soon led to the pups’ mother being disturbed and leaving the two pups behind as she fled to safety. The pups were both rehabilitated in RSPCA East Winch, but DNA tests showed that the two pups were in fact related. There are records of seal mums feeding another seal’s pup, but such sightings are few and far between and it has barely ever been observed that a seal has continuously nurtured another pup that isn’t her own.
During pupping season 2025 (September – December), SRT volunteers continued to monitor a relatively small pupping cove. This site is reasonably close to a coast path that can sometimes receive considerable footfall, making the mums that pup on this beach vulnerable to disturbance from dogs or even humans. This may result in mums being separated from their pups who would eventually pass away.
On the morning of 7th October, a sixth pup, affectionately named Oreo, was born to SOA44 Butterfly. It had become considerably harder to keep track of which pup belonged to which mum, as our mums seemed to leave their pups for long periods of the day. Maybe this was because of the good number of seals on one small cove. It became even more complicated when Butterfly was seen interacting with Popcorn after he had been weaned from his birth mum. Popcorn was the third pup, who was first seen with his mother, Teardrop, on 26th September. Popcorn had begun to moult his white pup coat, revealing his new patterned grey coat, so Butterfly had obviously decided to give him a quick swimming lesson whilst the water was reasonably calm.
Popcorn coming out of from his swimming lesson with Butterfly
Understandably, this created great confusion that was further amplified on 13th October, when Butterfly was seen feeding a third pup, Artichoke. Clover was Artichoke’s mum and had been the most attentive mum on the cove, as she sat in the same puddle day after day making sure her lovely little Artichoke was always catered for. We began to question whether Butterfly was mothering multiple pups at once. Our suspicions soon turned into reality when Butterfly was sighted feeding Popcorn. Although Artichoke and Butterfly weren’t seen together again, Butterfly continued to feed both Oreo and Popcorn (who was now twice the size of the average seal pup!). Concerns arose about whether this would decrease Oreo’s chances of survival, but he nevertheless left the beach looking fat and fit with adopted brother, Popcorn on October 22nd, with us wishing them both the utmost luck.
Butterfly feeding Popcorn as Oreo demands attention!
We can but speculate as to what Butterfly’s reasons were behind adopting Popcorn. The theories we have managed to conjure up are that either she isn’t the sharpest tool in the toolbox… or, that she wasn’t sure of Oreo’s chances after he somehow gashed his side open. Seals have 10 times more red blood cells than humans, this is to store oxygen on dives, and therefore his injury must have looked much more dramatic to people who saw it than it really was. Butterfly may have felt that she should start bringing up Popcorn in case Oreo didn’t manage to recover from his injury (which he thankfully did!). They couldn’t have been siblings as there was a good week or two between their ages. This was also evident as they were both at different stages of moulting their lanugo whitecoat pup fur.
Marshmallow in a nest of his white pup fur
The whole experience was both eye opening and tense. It was a tough challenge to keep our exciting news a secret, and we will continue to keep any specific locations to ourselves for future pups’ benefit. Trekking over roughly 100 miles of coast path over the full 43 surveys in ALL weathers was not an easy task, but the delightful experiences that we encountered along the way made up for it. It was amazing in lots of ways - from coming into a close shave with the resident horses and cows, watching a few-hours-old pup feed for possibly the first time, tensely waiting to see if Oreo would make it, waiting for all the pups to leave, seeing the best beachmaster keeping an eye on the last few pups in larger swells, to seeing Butterfly feeding two pups at once. It was 6 weeks that will never be forgotten. It was a privilege to witness every stage of the pup’s early life and to encounter small things such as pup Marshmallow lying in a ring of his own moulted pup fur or seeing Popcorn having a swimming lesson from the one and only Butterfly. All seven pups have amazed us with how you can get to know their individual characteristics that make us so fond of them. Weather wasn’t always on our side, hence why we were often dressed for the Arctic, to brace the horizontal rain, but even though at the time we cursed the howling wind and horizontal rain during multiple storms that decided to make our acquaintance, our cove wouldn’t be the same without it.
Thank you to our seven beautiful pups who will be individually treasured forever, and we wish them all the luck in the world for whatever the future may throw at them. Also thank you to all the fabulous seal mums who nurtured their pups so well and gave them the best headstart possible in life.
Butterfly feeding Artichoke
