As my foot is still recovering from the nail incident I’m unable to do a lot of walking for birding so a birdie friend and I just poked around the mudflats near the gun club at Rainbow Haven beach.

Right away we heard a lifer for both of us, the Nelson’s Sparrow.  Turns out they are nosey little birds and 3 of them flew around and gave us a little show.  Their song is really strange and you won’t mistake them for anything else once you know it.  Well not really true, they are actually very similar to the Salt Marsh Sparrow.

And to make it worse, they sometimes interbreed:

https://aba.org/nab/v65n2sparrows.pdf

Perhaps I should contact Jim Edsall for ID help he’s usually right!

There are always a bunch of Savannah Sparrows down there and sometimes Ipswich.  They can be tough to tell apart sometimes so I’m not certain of the ones I photographed.

My guess is that these could be juvenile Savannah Sparrows but ID help would be appreciated.

At times it can seem disappointing when you go birding and all you see are sparrows, but they are pretty neat when you start identifying all the different ones.  We should also never take for granted the pretty sound of a Song Sparrow.

On the little causeway on the way out we noticed some baby Willets which are simply adorable.

You really don’t have to far in Nova Scotia to have a great birding experience, we are lucky for sure.

Day 3 started birding on the deck off the bedroom of my room at the B&B in Glovertown, which was delightful and affordable btw if you ever want to do some birding in Terra Nova National Park but you aren’t a backwoodsy camping type.

And I sure did want to do a morning of birding in Terra Nova National Park before making my way to St. John’s but I had to backtrack to Gander due to long commute bad planning syndrome.  Well doing to work in several new towns each day is challenging to plan what can I say.  But I digress…

I’m starting to think the House Sparrow is my spirit bird.  First bird I snapped in the bushes off the deck this morning were House Sparrows.  I also have them in my backyard all year round and saw them in Portland, Maine outside a pet shop I was visiting.  So I think their population is on the mend…I’m just sayin.  Anyway, I love the little guys.  I think this one is saying good morning!

I also love Juncos and one flew onto the roof to spy on me while I was drinking my coffee.

 Shower up and hit the road and hit Gander for the pet store visit and to make the most of the backtracking I made a quick stop in The Thomas Howe Demonstration Forest to see if I could find a few warblers.

Bad photo but there were lots of Pine Siskins which is nice because I’m always happy to see them in the woods as most often people see them at feeders it seems.  I don’t have feeders so don’t see them around my house ever.  They are plain but endearing.

Also nabbed a lifer.  The photos aren’t great but still happy to follow the pretty melodic song ( D# F C C D#) of the Black Throated Green Warbler.

So not so bad to backtrack after all and got to spend extra time with my client, which was also nice.  It’s always so rushed on the road hard to balance but worth trying for sure.

After all was said and done I managed to get a little over an hour in Terra Nova National Park.  Sandy Pond had been recommended as a good bird stop and an easy walk.  You could spend a week in that park and never see half of it.  Think Kejimkujik meets the CB Highlands.  Very highly under-accessed and underrated gem of a National Park.  Canoe, Kayak, back country camp so gorgeous!

Anyway, the Parks Canada dude gave me the rundown of birds I might encounter and Northern Waterthrush was on the list which sounded great to me so I went for a stroll.

First bird I saw was a Spotted Sandpiper on the beach, and then a Savannah Sparrow.

The Parks Canada interpretive signs say there are a lot of Palm Warblers in this area (although ebird says rarity) and I can’t identify this warbler so I’m thinking perhaps it is a Palm.  ID help appreciated.

It’s funny because this morning 2 of my sightings popped up as rarities on some NL birding blogs.  I can tell you right now I am no rare bird spotter.  There are just a kazillion birds here and people are only interested in Puffins and Whales and Moose…LOL

There is always a Yellow Rumped it’s a given.

And although this shot is awful it is my Northern Waterthrush.  (note turns out I did not photograph a Waterthrush after all but they were abundant and I did hear them for sure – I will find one in Nova Scotia I’m on a mission now!)

Had I more time I could have gotten a better shot as they were aplenty but I had a pet store to visit in Clarenville.

Mother Nature delivered one more gift as I headed to my car, my first Swamp Sparrow.

4 lifers in 2 hours today wasn’t too bad even though my day didn’t start the way I envisioned, it all worked out in the end.

By the time I got to my B&B in Holyrood at 830 I was zonked.

I have to also put a shout out to them the host brought me some tea and cake and a fuzzy robe.  So nice!

All work and no play tomorrow but that is just fine by me I love my Newfoundland clients.  The whole island is filled with wonderful friendly people, and the birds aren’t too bad either…

Day 2…no Puffins and no Gray Jays but I did get my moose.

It’s interesting because I had a little chat with Rick at the Hotel North and he said they are seeing birds they have never seen before in Saint Anthony.  Robins and Bluejays never used to go there apparently and interestingly enough there were Robins all over the West Coast in great numbers.  He also said it was the first time he saw the little Yellow canary type birds which I think must  be the Yellow Warblers as I haven’t seen any Goldfinch.  I find people tend to refer to both as canary type birds.  He said there are usually just lots of Gray Jays which is true, but I haven’t seen any.  Also, Sandra thought the Double Crested Cormorants were new to the area and making a menace of themselves by eating the eggs of other birds.  Climate change does make interesting changes in the birds we see for sure.  I’m new to birds, but am finding out quickly that the birds are behaving differently.

Anyway, you really have to go out on a boat to see the Puffins so I’ll likely leave the island without seeing any and that is okay because last year I visited a huge colony of them in Whitless Bay on a whale and bird tour in Bay of Bulls.  At the time I didn’t know anything about birds but now that I do I would say run don’t walk for that spot if you are a bird nerd.

There were a few spots I had scoped out for scenery the day before that I made quick stops at for memory shots.  First stop Eddie’s Cove where they have the toughest seagulls I’ve ever seen look at those ice caps!

Next stop Flower’s Cove just the prettiest little town ever.  Was photographing the lighthouse and a Northern Pintail showed up in my lens.  Not something that happens every day, unless you’re on the Rock I guess.  He was super far away so not the greatest shot but still a neat birding experience.

I didn’t have a lot time to spend today as I wanted to spend some time in Gros Morne before hitting the hay as well so I skipped L’Anse Aux Meadows and opted to visit Port Aux Choix instead.  And, since I was getting kind of woozy from all the fried food on the Rock I opted to visit a little cafe that serves healthy food instead of visiting the Parks Canada interpretive site.  Creative way to fit the town into my route I thought and I also stopped on the beach in Port Sanders to get some photos and salty air on the way.  Good choice it turned out as the first thing on the path was a pair of Terns resting on the beach.  Maybe these one are Caspian or Artic Terns as there is no black on the tip of their bills and they have black feet.  ID help appreciated please.

Also heard a Sandpiper a little further down in Port Aux Choix proper.  It’s far away as I snapped it from the car on a stretch of inaccessible beach, but it looks like a Spotted?

There were also some gulls and terns having a little beach party.

Eventually I landed at my final destination, Gros Morne – where you can pretend to be a National Geographic photographer in training.

At Western Brook there was a Savannah Sparrow sitting as pretty as a picture and singing his little heart out.  Of interest, the Western Brook Beach in Shallow Bay as well as Cow Head in Gros Morne have a long overdue return of nesting Piping Plovers.

Final stop was the trail to the Western Brook Pond (I didn’t take the boat tour but you should if you can for sure) which was singing with Warblers.  I knew if I didn’t see any birds the walk to the Fjords would still be spectacular, which is was indeed.

Not sure what kind of Warbler this is but my guess is a Tennessee Warbler they would be common to this location.

And I managed to snag a quick shot before this big bird flew away.  Not sure what is is my guess will be Pine Grosbeak?

No walk in the woods is complete without the beautiful song of the Hermit Thrush and there were many of them on the path.  I found this little feller up high singing his heart out.

Tomorrow I start work on the island and will be visiting pet stores in Grand Falls/Windsor and Gander and then taking the evening near Terra Nova Park which will be amazing if I’m not rained out  🙂

There are all kinds of different birders.  The ones that just have backyard feeders, the ones who go to the park, the ones who walk in the woods, and varying combinations thereof.  But one thing most will agree on is that the songbirds are most active and easy to photograph in the morning.

I’m not a morning person (not even when back-country camping in Keji really so we always canoe in the windy afternoons yup) so find this rather daunting.

But it was suggested to me by a friend that 8am is probably just fine, you don’t really have to be out at 6am.  So this morning I gave that a try and was rewarded with a plethora of warblers and flycatchers.  It also apparently does not hurt that it rained yesterday.

Now I would say personally the time of day has something to do with human interference because I was surrounded with birds the whole time I was there until a stranger arrived and spoke to me. That was around 9am and some people had jogged and biked by before that and the birds didn’t care but talking scared them all off.

Most importantly I walked through a cloud of biting blackflies in a marsh soaked my feet and worried about getting covered with ticks.  I more or less snuck up on the birds, as well as a muskrat and a snowshoe hare simply because I was the only person who wandered through their little habitat.

I did not use any tricks or do anything special I was completely silent.  I just listened and watched for the birds and they were there.  They are always there, they just camouflage really well.

I didn’t see anything really spectacular, but it was a spectacular experience.

And when I got home finally my baby Starlings were on my front lawn.  Serendipity I suppose…

Will work on this morning thing…Happy Birding  🙂

PS – click twice on any of these for zoom I did not crop or alter so people who are new birders, or not birders at all can see some perspective.

PPS – if you want to learn about birds on a guided walk at no cost the Nova Scotia Bird Society puts on a lot of great field trips.