St. Mary's Reserve, Sunday June 20

Our first stop today was the Salmonier Nature Park
where you can view wildlife in developed enclosures representing their natural habitat. Sounds cruel, but these animals are "resuce animals", most of which have had injuries or amputations that privent them from living in the wild. It is actually a very natural open environment for the animals, and we were impressed. The snowy owl and caribou were the only animals visible enough to take a picture. All we saw of a Moose was his ears. He was laying down in tall grass but that was as close as we could get even though there were numerous warnings of moose encounters especially while driving. The lynx was busy cleaning himself so his back was to us, there were no foxes, beavers or hares...so that was about it for that park. Nice walk though.

On our way to St.Mary's Cove was The Cataracts, where we found deep river gorges with two cascading waterfalls. There is water everywhere in Newfoundland, with streams, rivers and lakes ("ponds", as they calll them here) everywhere. It's like the province is one big rock (pre-Cambrian limestone, to be precise) covered with moss, heath, balsam fir forests and water. Most of the streams are a brown colour because of the bogs everywhere. I'm sure that if the Newfoundlanders claimed that there were anti-oxidants in the bog water (which is likely), they could make a fortune.

On the Cape Shore Loop is Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve, one of the most accessible seabird colonies in North America. This picture shows where we began the trail that leads over to the sea stacks where the birds are. So in this first picture you'll notice something white on the cliffs, looks like snow maybe....it's birds!

Another look as we continued our walk along the cliff tops from the lighthouse to the Bird Rock, a 200 foot high sea stack that is home to many species of birds.

This shot just demonstrates how close we are to the edge of these cliffs as we continue to walk down the path....it's just incredible.

Look closely at these two pictures above and below...those are all birds on the ledges of the cliff, mostly Gannets, Murres, and Kittewakes, with some other more rare species. The Gannets have yellow heads, while the Murres look a lot like little penguins. In fact, they have stubby wings that are very good for gliding under water, just like penguins.

This is a shot just looking down the coast. We are pretty high at this point looking down.

The Gannet is the prodominent species on the Bird Island. This picture just shows a few of them on the cliff...

These pictures just don't show the perpective of the height of this rock and the cliff edges in the back drop, but think of 70,000 birds perched 500 feet above the sea and the acitivty of their lives that we could witness. It was a National Geographic moment....just absolutely an amazing sight.

We are 'perched' ourselves on this cliff, if you notice what the sign reads beside us, it was very dangerous up there so you made sure you were surefooted! You just can't see the spectacular view over the cliff right behind us. The seastack behind us was one huge rock by itself, loaded with birds in every crack. Along the cliff walls were different species of birds, all segregated in a hierachy, with the dominant species occupying the prime (safest) layers. The sound of all these birds was incredible and you really had to stay focused while you were on the cliff to take in all that was to be seen. We could also see whales out in the ocean numerous times...easy to see the spouts of water spraying up. This was an experience that is hard to describe but one that I will never forget.

Martin wanted to get a picture of the lighthouse when the beacon came around so he had to time it precisely but a gannet flew in at the same time which is such a great shot. We finally dragged ourselves away from this place and made our way to Placentia where we found a B&B on the harbour front. Another historical home that are restored so beautifully, and the owner was a pastry chef...need I say more?