Sitting on the dock by the bay, watching the tides roll away. Many people take those Otis Redding lyrics to heart, but have you ever seen a seal do it?

Wareham Animal Control officer Cheryl Gorveatt-Dill said she received a call on the morning of March 3 about a seal sitting on the dock at Warr's Marina at 2 Warr's Ave.

"They saw the seal when they came in the morning, and it wouldn't leave," Gorveatt-Dill said. "They thought it must have been injured or sick."

She contacted the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which sent someone within 15 minutes to check on the seal.

Gorveatt-Dill said the woman from the IFAW examined the seal, which she determined was a Canadian harp seal, and found it to be in good health, probably under a year old.

The IFAW agent told Gorveatt-Dill it was common to see seals by themselves like this. When they get tired and want to rest they'll just climb up on something like a dock and relax for awhile.

"The only seal calls I get are ones where they're actually injured," Gorveatt-Dill said. "This is the first time I've seen one just resting like that."

She said she put down cones to keep people at least 100 feet away from the seal. When she left the scene and returned a few hours later, the seal was still there, but had departed by the end of the day.

"If anyone sees a seal, they should call Animal Control. Don't approach it," Gorveatt-Dill said.

She said that while the seal was relaxing, two adult swans came swimming by and circled the seal as the three creatures checked each other out.

"The swans were extremely intrigued with what was going on. It was cute," Gorveatt-Dill said.