We arrived at the dock quite early as they were getting the boat ready. We were greeted by the husband of the boat’s naturalist. We had talked with her yesterday about birds and he knew we were coming. It turned out that he is an Ornithologist and a professor of seabird biology at the university here. He gave us lots of data on what is to be seen on Newfoundland and where to look.
We’d heard of many of the spots via nf.birds, the local birding newsgroup, but it was good to get confirmation and find out about the local birders who were posting reports. And as we were talking, he was pointing out the Bald Eagle across the harbor, describing the garbled song of the juvenile White-throated Sparrow who was just learning to sing in the background and the telling us of the known local kingfishers just before they flew by.
Right up until we were about to board, it looked like we were going to have a bird-focused private tour with two biologists and their whale-sniffing Shetland Sheepdog, Alwen.Then...at the last moment a tour van came racing down the road an disgorged a pile of kids on a birthday trip. Oh well.
It was a great trip anyway. We saw two of the three islands with nesting seabird colonies. Unfortunately, Great Island, the home of 500,000 Atlantic Puffins, was too far upwind on this windy day, but there were plenty of puffins in the water, in the air and on the islands we did visit. As impressive as the puffins were, the Common Murres were everywhere. Green Island was literally wall-to-wall murres and Gull Island has also covered with seabirds nesting. They are the most communal of birds with a density of 100 nesting birds per square yard. That’s less than four inches per bird.
The Common Murres completely covered all open rocky areas on the island an most of wide ledges on the cliffs. On the seaward side of the island were narrow ledges of Thick-billed Murres. There were also a large number of Black-legged Kittiwakes on the cliffside ledges. Mixedin were a sprinkling of Razorbills. The puffins occupied any grassy areas where they could dig their burrows. It was quite interesting that each species has its own nesting niche and that the islands provide all of them. One species we didn’t see were the hundreds of thousands of Wilson’s Storm Petrels who nest there. They are burrow nesters and are nocturnal, so they were all asleep.
But the main reason the birds are there is the food. The waters are rich with the small fish that the birds feed on, mostly Capelin. Not only are there a million-plus birds feeding, there are enough fish to feed the local whales. We saw both Humpback and Minke whales on the trip, including a mother and child pair of Humpbacks. The little whale kept slapping its tail on the water. There was a question of why. One possible explanation was that it did it to stun small fish, but another was that it was just having fun.
In addition to all the local Alcids and the Kittiwakes, we also saw Gannets fishing and the usual Herring Gulls stalking the cliff tops looking for a meal. With a sunny day and the offshore winds, the shearwaters and jaegers with nowhere to be seen. We hope they will be present as we go around the end of the peninsula. That is where they have been seen recently.
After the boat trip, we continued south. The thought was to stop at the Colony of Avalon archeological site, then a hotspot at Renews and end up at Chance Cove Provincial Park where there is a free campground. But first it was time for lunch. We stopped in Ferryland at Bernard Kavanaugh’s Million Dollar View Restaurant. It was fairly busy, but not very full. While we were waiting for a server to appear an old guy in a t-shirt who eating lunch a a window table said to grab a menu a sit at his table since he was just finishing and it was the best table in the house. It did have a great view overlooking the bay.
We did. It turned out that he was the owner, Bernard Kavanaugh. We chatted for a while about icebergs, RVs and our travels. Last year there were icebergs right in bay in front of the restaurant. He had an article on his wall that showed the iceberg and a local ice climber scaling it...then diving off the top. He had also just bought what seemed to be huge Class A motorhome, but it wasn’t clear where he was going to take it. His concern was repairs, since he bought it in Toronto and it was buolt in Georgia. Both places are quite far away. An interesting local Newfoundlander.
The Colony of Avalon...we couldn’t quite get our heads around it. It is the site of one of the earliest English settlements on Newfoundland. It was only occupied a few years before the settlers left and went to Maryland. They were led by Lord Baltimore. It seems to still be an active dig, with people still working on it, but we couldn’t figure out whether it was an academic or commercial endeavor. There was a vistor center where an admission was charged which alowedyou to see the exhibit of artfacts and take a guided tour of the site. We declined and walked over to take a look at the ruins. They were open to see.
From there. we went on to the harbor of Renews, which is one of the highly rated hotspots. It looked like it should be an excellent spot for shorebirds, but we saw only a Yellowlegs and a few terns. It may have been the wind or it may be that they aten’t here yet, but it was a bit disappointing.
Chance Cove Provincial Park is 6 km down a rough, rocky, unpaved road. We were expecting something like the free provincial park at Cape Bonavista, overlooking the ocean, since that is where the road ended on the map. Alas, it was not that. It ended on a parking lot-like camping area with no view of the which was lined with large travel trailers. Llof them were pretty new and set up for season long stays...but there was no one around. It seems some Newfoundlanders take the free campground to its limits and set up for the summet and appear only on weekends.
There were only a couple of places to squeeze in between the existing dites, so we decided to continue on to the place we’d hoped to visit, Cape Race, right at the bottom of the Avalon peninsula. As we got closer to the end, the fog started to come in. By the time we reached the coast, it was pea soup fog an the temperature has dropped to the low 60s. Turned down the road to Cape Race anyway. By the tome we got there, it was even foggier. We could barely see the top of the lighthouse. We had thought about parking out there, but it was very windy and after sitting awhile and listening to the close by foghorn we remembered a spot a ways back slong the road in that might be quieter an more level.
We have ended up at the new parking lot for the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve. It is quiet, flat and has toilets. There is also a trail out to the ocean across the street. It is toll windy and foogy and cool. It is a dise of the Newfoundland we expected.
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