Newfoundland & Nova Scotia Jul 05—15, 2006
Posted by Kim Eckert
Kim Eckert
Kim Eckert, with over 40 years of birding experience throughout the U.S. and Canada, has now been guiding birders or teaching bird identification classes for more than 25 o...Related Trips
With so many memorable highlights on this year’s tour, it’s genuinely hard to know where to begin! One could make a case for headlining this summary with weather news, which resulted in something happening on this tour for the first time ever. Or perhaps the lead story should be our being able to observe a bird which had only occurred twice ever before in North America! Then there were all those nesting and pelagic seabirds, which are what this tour is really all about in the first place. On the other hand, back in the woods, there were some unprecedented views of two elusive thrushes, plus one of our longest lists of warbler species ever.
Well, I suppose you have to give the edge to that third North American record of a Western Reef-Heron, which had been present at Glace Bay in Nova Scotia for a few weeks. Luckily, this site was only a half hour from our hotel in North Sydney and easy enough to include in our itinerary. Fortunately, as well, the heron was waiting for us as we arrived; several previous observers had reported having to wait several hours or even a few days before it would appear.
As far as other water birds go, the pelagic ferry crossing between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland typically provides some of our best birding?given decent weather, of course. And this year the weather and the birds certainly did not disappoint. There was not a hint of a fog bank or rain the whole way, and we were handsomely rewarded with some significant birds. A skua flew low enough over our heads to provide us the opportunity to confidently identify it as a South Polar. Manx Shearwaters probably appeared in numbers higher than I had ever witnessed on this crossing, as did several groups of Red Phalaropes, along with what I think were the first Red-necked Phalaropes ever noted on this tour.
But, alas, the weather did not always cooperate. The chronic fog at Cape St. Mary’s presented its usual visibility problems, but it lifted just enough to provide the more patient birders with decent views of Thick-billed Murres on the cliffs below. Our first attempt to visit Cape Pine featured not just fog but also wind-driven rains. Fortunately, conditions were favorable the next morning when we returned to see Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, Black Guillemots, and Great Cormorants posing on ledges below the lighthouse. We even saw a pair of moose and a few caribou en route and some whales in the waters beyond the headlands.
It was especially lucky, indeed, that we had such nice looks at puffins at Cape Pine, since the weather the next day deteriorated to the point of being impossible. For the first time since my first tour here in 1985, the boat tour to see thousands of Atlantic Puffins close at hand (not to mention equal numbers of murres and kittiwakes) had to be canceled due to high winds and even higher seas. (Some of the waves that day reportedly crested at 20 feet!)
But despite this tour’s emphasis on some amazing quantities of many quality seabirds, I have to think I may have been more impressed by our list of woods birds. Consider, for example, our tally of 20 warbler species, a total seldom reached on this tour. Especially satisfying was being able to turn up Tennessee, Chestnut-sided, Palm, Bay-breasted, and Canada?all species we have failed to see on some past trips.
Equally impressive?if not more so?were the fine looks we had of both Bicknell’s and Gray-cheeked thrushes, two highly elusive birds. The Bicknell’s we found on Cape Breton provided the best and most prolonged views we’ve ever had, as it repeatedly posed in plain sight and even sang a few times. (This is still a species we’ve never missed seeing on this tour!) More elusive in recent years, for reasons unknown, has been the Gray-cheeked Thrush on the Newfoundland side, but this year there were two or three singing males which eventually emerged for all to see.
And what about that male Black-backed Woodpecker at Liscombe, the four Ruffed Grouse sightings (including three with chicks), Parasitic Jaegers and Arctic Terns chasing each other in and out of the fog at Holyrood Pond, and those whales and other marine mammals seen from the headlands and ferry? Just honorable mention, I guess. Nothing more than page 2 material in this year’s edition of The Nova Scotia & Newfoundland News.