Day 16 - Cape Bonavista and Elliston

Puffins! Finally!

We made an early start this morning and drove the shoreline road to Cape Bonavista. After an unsuccessful search for a coffee shop that doesn’t exist, we stopped at the local Foodland for milk and a few necessities like lettuce and Macadamia Nut and White Chocolate cookies. Afrter that is was it was out to the lighthouse at the end of the cape. There was a lot of traffic on the way and we barely found a space for Speedy in the lower parking lot.

There is a high rocky island only about 200 yards from the cliff at the lighthouse. On it were lots of Atlantic Puffins, a good-sized breeding colony. I counted about 200 sitting outside their burrows and there were many more flying about and in rafts in the water offshore from the cliffs. There was also a small group of Black-legged Kittiwakes nesting on the cliff side below the puffins. We also saw a few Black Guillemots and Razorbills in the water near the base of the cliffs. There were also several Herring Gulls patrolling the top of the island.

Offshore there were big rafts of birds, but they were much to far off to identify well. Many were puffins, but there were other alcids, but too far away to determine which ones. There were also flights of black seabirds, But we aren’t skilled enough to make a call at that distance. And to top it off, we saw at least two Humpback Whales swimming by...and we saw American Pipits on the heath as we walked down the cliffside trail.

After all that we went back to Speedy for lunch. Following lunch we went back to the lighthouse overlook to try out the digiscoping attachment we have for Ellen’s big spotting scope...but the puffins had all disappeared. The burrows visble from the lighthouse were in full sun at that time and the youngsters were probably back in their burrows and the adults off fishing. They wre still flying by and occasionally one would land near the top of the island. We got a couple of fuzzy shots, but soon gave up. It we’d first arrived after lunch we would have thought there were no birds still there.

Our next stop was the Dungeon Provincial Park, just down the cape a bit. It has a set of rock arches that the sea comes through. It was quiet today, but it is supposed to be booming with spray when there is a sea running. Interesting, but not much to tarry over, so we went on to Elliston.

This is the weekend of the 21st annual Bird Island Puffin Festival. We stopped by on our way through town. We were hoping that we might stay at the Elliston Municipal Park Campground, but it was overflowing since the park is also the site of the festival. There wasn’t much going on at the festival, just a few booths with games and food and a country singer performing for a small crowd at the stage. I think that it picks up at night...at least I hope so.

We continued on to the Elliston Puffin Viewing Site. This is a cliff top looking out to a small island only about 50 yards away and a much larger island further off. This is a spot where the puffins will often land on the mainland side right next to people. There were lots of puffins on the close island and lots of people on the mainland side. There were no puffin visitors today. The puffins on the small close island were only a small contingent, the island further offshore was wall-to-wall puffins, at least a thousand. We counted about two hundred more between the ones on the smaller island and in the water below its cliffs.

There seemed to be many young birds, probably taking their first flights. They would jump off the cliff, beat their wings like mad and slowly descend almost to the water before getting any real lift. The older adults would just fly off and up. It looked like the rafts of birds just below the cliff may have been mostly juveniles. There were a couple of landings among them where the puffin comes in and just lands with a belly flop and sinks below the surface before popping back up.

We estimated about 1200 puffins and a smattering of other birds as well on both islands. We could see the offshore island had mostly puffins, but there was a big colony of kittiwakes on the cliffsides as well.

Not being able to fit in at the Elliston Park, we went back to the cape. There is a small municipal day park, the John Cabot Municipal Park, which it a known boondocking spot. There were a couple of small RVs there when we passed by after lunch, but the parking lot was mostly full when we came back, with five Class C and B campers in the lot and another Class B in the picnic area below the parking lot. 

We tried the picnic area, which was much more private, but it was grass and embedded big rocks going down to it. We found a spot, but it was not very level. After checking the weather and seeing that rain is forecast for early tomorrow morning, We decided to bump our way back up the hill today rather than trying it on wet grass in the morning. There was a bit of space in the upper parking lot so we backed in.

It was like being in parking lot. We had dinner there, but decided to move on. I had read that there was parking by an antenna site just across the road. We walked over to check it out. It has a nice flat parking area and, except for an old transmitter building, there are nice views to the east and west...and we would be alone. Its only downside is that it is much closer to the road. We moved, found a flat spot and have a nice view of the setting sun and of the lighthouse.

Since we saw the puffin colonies at both Cape Bonavista and Elliston, we will probably move on tomorrow. There are reports of a Little Heron at Spaniard’s Bay. We might go there to take a look.