Plompe Tower (seals and porpoises)

Plompe Tower

The 23-meter high Plompe Tower is the only part that remains of the once prosperous village of Koudekerke. There is an exciting story about this. The story goes that fishermen pulled a mermaid from the water and displayed her on land. While everyone admired and laughed at her, her husband, a merman, came with their child in his arms begging for her release. The mermen only laughed harder as the mermaid breathed her last. In revenge, the merman laid a curse on the village, after which a fierce storm caused all the houses to collapse, leaving only the Plompe Tower standing.

Whether this story is true? We will never find out. What is indisputable is the spectacular marine life in the water in front of the Plompe Tower. For harbor porpoises, this hotspot is an ideal place with many species of fish. It is also a place where you can see seals resting on the roggenplaat. This is a sandbank in the sea. At the top of the tower, you can use the available binoculars to watch the basking seals. In the months of May and June, you can even see pups of the common seal. The common seal and the grey seal are the two seal species found in the Oosterschelde, can you see the difference between these two? Take a good look at their heads and sizes.

Grey seal or common seal?

In the first image, you see a common seal (left) and the grey seal (right) side by side. One of the main differences is size. The common seal, with a maximum length of 1.9 meters and weighing 70 - 170 kilograms, is smaller and slimmer than the grey seal, which can grow to 2.2 to 3.3 meters and weigh 200 to 400 kilograms.

Additionally, there is also a difference in their appearance, just look at the first photo. Common seals have a round head with large, expressive eyes and their nostrils are in a V-shape. They range from brown to blonde and have almost no spots. The grey seal, on the other hand, has a more robust build, with a longer snout and nostrils that are vertical. The males of the grey seal are dark brown to black with some light spots, and the females are light brown to blonde with dark spots.

Furthermore, the common seal prefers to live in shallow waters and likes to stay close to home. Whereas the grey seal tends to live in open sea. Grey seals also have no trouble swimming all the way from the Netherlands to England.

Another major difference between the two seals is the timing of birth. Grey seals are born in the winter, and the pups have a thick white coat to keep warm. The pups of the common seal enter the world in June - July.

Stichting Rugvin