Day 22 - I Think We’re Alone Now

We were still alone out on Cape Race this morning and we are again alone at Cape St. Mary’s tonight. In between it was almost a wash-out (fog-out would be more accurate) of a day. We left the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve parking lot fairly early in dense fog, stopping for a small herd of Caribou who were standing in the road. They trotted off into the fog as we approached. We stayed in the fog for most of the morning.

There are a series of hotspots along the south and southwestern sides of the Avalon Peninsula that a well-known seawatching spots. We stopped at all of them. All of them were completely fogged in. The  ost we saw were a few gulls in the fog on the beach.

To make it a bit better we detoured north on the Irish Loop to the Salmonier Nature Park. This is a wildlife rehabilitation center run by the province and includes a 3km walking trail that winds through the forest past large natural enclosures housing animals that could not be returned to the wild. It was a nice walk on a boardwalk above the soggy forest floor. We saw Snowy and Great Horned Owls, Bald Eagles and a Northern Goshawk in enclosures and Gray Jays, a Raven and a Downy Woodpecker in the woods. There were mammals as well including Caribou, Moose, Lynx, Snowshoe Hare and Arctic Fox, which we saw, and Red Fox and Mink who were hiding.

We also saw lots of children (I guess they count as mammals) as they passed us on the trail. When we arrived the parking lot was almost empty. When we got back to Speedy, the lot was full, including three school buses. It is obviously a popular place to visit on a gray, cool day.

After lunch, we decided to continue on to Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve. This is the home of a large set of nesting seabird colonies on the cliffs of the cape and a sea stack only a few yards offshore. It is also home to an excessive amount of fog. As we drove inland on the route to the cape, the fog we had been in dissipated, but as we approached Cape St. Mary’s it returned even thicker and windier. It was a long 13km off the main road out to the reserve and we eventually found the parking lot. It wasn’t until we got out of Speedy that we could discern the outlines of the visitor center. 

We found our way in and were greeted by an amazingly cheerful staff member. He welcomed us to the “foggiest place in the world”. It had been foggy here for the last 19 days. Ellen asked about the wall-sized photo of the Gannet colony on a clear sunny day. He said to come back in August. That’s when the sun shines. The fog comes in when the wind is from the south and it has been that way for most of the month. He also said that if we walked out the mile long trail, we’d still be able to see the birds, not all of them, but quite a few. So we did.

It was blowing about 35kts and my glasses misted up immediately. After cleaning them off half a fozen times, I finally gave up and just looked over the top of the rims. It was a bit fuzzy, but we were walking in a fog. It was recommended that we stay inside the line of yellow posts so as to not walk off the cliff. They said that there were no barriers anywhere, but they hadn’t lost anyone yet. We stayed inside the posts.

We could hear the birds before we could see them, but the end of the path appeard and the sea stack covered in Northern Gannets appeared. We could see the birds pretty clearly and there were many flying over, some just hovering right in front of us. Gannets weren’t the only birds. Both a Common Murre and a Razorbill landed on a rock not more than five feet away, had their photos taken and soared away. There were also Black-legged Kittiwakes hovering in the wind next to us. They nest on the side of the cliff that were standing on. 

After we got our fill of birds, mist and wind, we headed back. This was directly into the wind, so my glasses got even more misted up. Ellen’s hair looked just like she’d just gotten out of s shower. I’m sure mine was the same way. On the way along the trail we came upon a large seabird sitting in the grass. It didn’t look like any of the birds we had just seen and it was sitting quite still. I was able to get close enough to get a couple of photos and when we showed to the folks in the visitor center, they identified it as a fledgling kittiwake. It was the first seen this season. They are pretty weak fliers when they leave the nest and sometimes get blown off course. This one landed on the grass near the trail well inland from the cliffs. Unfortunately, it will probably become fox food tonight as there is a Red Fox family nearby.

The visitor center fellow suggested that we could stay the night in the parking lot. He said the overnight forecast was for the wind to shift to the west then drop by morning. This meant there was a reasonable chance that the fog might move out for a better view. As we are 13km up a narrow road and there aren’t any nearby campgrounds, staying seemed a reasonable idea. We found a flat spot in a corner of the parking lot and we were the only ones left after the visitor center closed at 6pm.

Once it got dark, we could see the glow of the Cape St. Mary’s light in the fog...a flash every five seconds, and we can hear the foghorn. Tomorrow we will, fog willing, try for another look at the seabird colonies. In addition to the gannets, they have Common and Thick-billed Murres, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Black Guillemots, Razorbills and Cormorants nesting here. There are no puffins or storm-petrels because there is no island habitat for digging burrows.

We are still discussing the next stop. If the fog moves off, we might try to go back to the sites we washed-out with today and try again for the possibily present shearwaters and jaegers. Who knows? In any case we will eventually start to head north toward the Burin Peninsula and the ferry to St. Pierre.