Cape St.Mary's Ecological Reserve

Sunday morning i got out of bed at 3:00am and headed to Cape St.Mary's Ecological Reserve for the 4th time this year. The cape and its wildlife never get old. If i had the time I'd go 100 times a year. The cape offers such amazing up close looks at everything from nesting seabirds like Northern Gannets & Murres to dozens of newly born lambs on your walk to bird rock. It truly is a special place in the province of Newfoundland Labrador that i believe is a must see for locals and tourists alike.

The image above i captured to show how amazing bird rock is. This massive sea stack is just meters from the mainland and offers great views of the thousands of Gannets that nest all over it. This image shows about 1/4 of the amount of sea birds at the cape. The cliffs all around the general area of bird rock is covered in nesting Murres,Razor ills and Black Guillemot. Also thousands of Black-Legged Kittiwakes nest along the cliffs with the rest of the sea birds.

They nest VERY close to the edge. 

Black-Legged Kittiwakes are amazing at doing acrobat like moves while manoeuvring around the sheer cliffs where they nest. This makes photographing them in flight a challenge. I find that i have to choose one bird to photograph, watch its pattern (They usually do a circle shape) and then predict where it will be about 2 seconds from where it is while I'm looking at it. This doesn't always work because the birds sometimes dive, bank, or land at any given time. After repeating this method over and over again you will come away with a few keepers as i did in the images below.

  

Common & Thick-Billed Murres also nest in massive numbers around the cliffs at the reserve. There is no real technique in photographing these guys besides hopping that the day is overcast and not foggy or sunny. This allows you to properly compose the whites & blacks on the birds. These fat little birds are always fun to watch as they awkwardly hurl themselves at the cliffs. The Razor Bill is the closest know relative of the now extinct Great Auk.

Not much room!

       The image above just goes to show how many murres there are. They are clustered together in very large numbers. Its hard to believe they just lay their one single egg on nothing more then a cluster of their own droppings along the VERY edge of a cliff. But somehow they do this and it works. Just another thing about nature that i find so amazing.

Common Murre

Among the tens of thousands of murres there are a small number of Razorbills that come back each year to nest with the rest of Newfoundland's auks.

Razorbill

Below are more images i captured during the day i sent at the cape. I hope you enjoy them!

Horned Lark

More Boxes!

Wildlife officer Jessica Belbin and some of her co-workers decided to help place some nest boxes near the Clarenvile area over the last few weeks.  Clarenvile has nice large stands of old forest, not to mention both Boreal & Northern Saw-whet owls have been herd in near by Terra Nova National Park. I am excited to hear if they get any owls! We now have 11 boxes out in that area.

Here are a few photos Jessica attached of her co-workers placing the boxes

Two more boxes have been placed on the lower Salmonier Line, bringing our box total up to 7 boxes along the river valley. Also earlier this week i checked one box which had a squirrel living inside it, another box on Thorburn road was empty.

 (CBC reporter Todd O'Brien helps place another box on the lower Salmonier river)

The short window of time to get boxes out in order to have a chance in being used this season is closing quickly. We still have a few more boxes that are ready to be placed if anyone is looking to help out.

Park warden Mervin Langdon reports nothing of note at any of the 6 boxes in Terra-Nova National Park. He plans to place 2 more boxes this season; Sometime this week i will be heading to Butterpot Provincial Park to check boxes we put there last winter.

Monday morning Brad & I will be doing our annual trip to Cape St.Mary's Ecological Reserve to photograph thousands Northern Gannets, mures, horned larks and caribou.

An old bridge which we cross to place boxes on the salmonier river

Winter Time In Newfoundland

 Winter time in Newfoundland is a long cold season filled with storms and constant bitter winds.
December more specifically is a hard month for photography, as I look back through my photos I have very few during this month. Friday I get out of school for Christmas break and I can not wait to have some time to go photographing local birds and try some winter landscape photos.

The cold temperatures this past moth have most bodies of water frozen solid, concentrating any birds to the remaining patches of water. This gives great opportunities for diving duck photography.
In past years Brad and I have photographed mostly tufted ducks in the month of December. This will be my first season using my new Canon 300mm F2.8 is usm ii so I am excited to see what the difference in quality my images will be on this species. All shots in this post were taken with my old 300mm F4 during December.

A few species me and brad are hoping to get the chance to photograph this winter include:

Ivory Gull
Bald Eagles
Common & Red breasted Mergansers
Common Golden Eye
Peregrine Falcon
Dovekie
Northern Shrike (Seen one in my yard in 2012!)

All species listed were seen more then once last year giving us a false hope we will see them this winter. But each season is a new one and for all we know we may never photograph all of these species but that doesn't mean we wont try! Another thing we are planning on having a few outings to photograph are the seals that congregate in Holyrood and the Caribou on the southern shore.

In just a few days the annual St. Johns Christmas bird count will be happening which is always exciting because almost every year there are good birds found. Winter is here and the Holidays are apon us. Keep your feeders filled and enjoy the birds of the winter!