It seems to be an under-visited area of the province. There are seemingly fewer attractions and fewer birding hotspots. The hotspots which are defined are definitely rarely birded, many of them have only one or two visits posted on eBird. I suspect that most tourists who go out to the Burin Peninsula do so because the ferry to St. Pierre and Miquelon leaves from Fortune near the southern end. That is our main reason for making this drive.
One of the first things we saw as we turned off the Trans-Canada onto Route 210 was a sign warning about moose. It also said there were over 600 moose accidents last year. I’m not sure if that is province-wide or just on the Burin Peninsula. In either case, it is a sobering number.
Moose are a problem of Newfoundland‘s own making as they are not native to the island. Brought over to the island in the 19th century, they found a moose paradise. Lots of boreal forest and wetlands to browse in and no predators. Now about 10% of the entire North American moose population is on Newfoundland, hence the large number of Moose accidents...and they really hurt. Ted, the biology professor we took the boat trip with, said that he never drives at dawn or after dark because of the moose danger. But, aside from the moose at the wildlife park, we have not seen one on Newfoundland...yet.
The drive down the peninsula was as empty and striking as any of the others we’ve made on our trip through Newfoundland. It wound through alternating low boreal forest and rocky green barrens with only a few settlements along the way. Almost surprisingly, the road was quite good all the way to Marystown.
Our destination for the day was the Frenchman’s Cove Provincial Park, which is only about 45 minutes from Fortune. Tomorrow, we will move on to the Horsebrook RV Park in Fortune for a couple of nights, before and after our day trip to St. Pierre. With only a stop at the new Sobeys market in Marystown for grocery shopping and lunch, we arrived at Frenchman’s Cove in the early afternoon. They had no powered sites available, but lots of unserviced sites and we found one on the shore overlooking the waters of the Frenchman’s Cove Barasway, an almost landlocked salt pond similar to Menemsha Pond or Lake Tashmoo on Martha’s Vineyard.
It was time for another walk. This time we went out of the park and followed the inlet stream much of the way to the sea, but only as far as the town, then along the road to the park to a trail through the woods back to the main shore of the barasway and along it back to Speedy. As far as birds go, there wasn’t much except robins and sparrows, but we did see more Spotted Sandpipers and Greater Yellowlegs along the stream as well as a couple of female Red Grosbeaks, but we saw no birds on the baraway.
Returning to Speedy, we made coffee and watched the fog repeatedly advance and retreat along the barasway in front of us.
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