A trip to the Chittenden Locks in Ballard in the fall is a good time to see salmon making their way up through the fish ladder en route to their spawning grounds.  If we know the salmon are there, so do their predators.  On this day, it was seals.  Seals and sea lions are both common at the locks when hunting for salmon.  A pair of seals were playing around in the waters near the locks, no doubt choosing their moment for a snack.  Another pair of seals had been a bit more aggressive in their thinking.  They had made their way into the fish ladder itself.

There are gates on the entrance to the ladder that are intended to allow the fish through and not the larger predators but I guess on this day, the gates had been left open.  Our first glimpse on one of the seals was as it was chomping its way through a salmon it had already caught.  It was making swift work of it.  A while later we saw them again.  They would haul themselves out on to the walls of the ladder for a break before diving back in to search for the next snack!