Caplin season birding peaks
My work sometimes takes me far out to sea for periods of weeks at a time. There are rich areas out there on the Grand Banks and some pretty routine places for a bird watcher to spend a few weeks. I have experienced them all, but nothing compares to the quality seabird watching that can be experienced from land on the southern Avalon Peninsula during the caplin spawning season.
I know I harp about the caplin and birds every week, but it is just so good! Sometimes you have to look for it. Just like the birds and the whales seek out the caplin concentrations, you have to seek out the good birding areas. It is not the same location every year and it changes from day to day.
This past weekend it John Wells, Ken Knowles and myself were doing a caplin and birds run of the southern Avalon Peninsula. We started at Trepassey where a roseate tern was present at mid-week. Even those with steady nine-to-five jobs got down there for that one. It was only the second proven record for the province. It looks close to our everyday common tern but has a black bill and an extra-long tail. It has more silvery-white wings and a faint rosy blush to the breast. It was found by a visiting birdwatcher from Pennsylvania.
It was presumed to be the same bird spotted by John Williams and Dave Hawkins nine days earlier at Bear Cove near Cappahayden. It was a very foggy day when most of us were there on the Wednesday to see the bird. Getting photographs through the fog was a challenge. This was why we wanted to start there early on Saturday with the good weather conditions hoping for another chance to improve on the photographs and views of the bird. But it was gone. It had moved on perhaps to show up again later at another location. Its normal centre of abundance is coastal Massachusetts and New York State.
We continued on to St. Shotts where we were entertained by some 20,000 shearwaters on the calm water stretching from the rocks and out toward the horizon. Most of the birds were resting in rafts but there were small swarms actively fishing for caplin. We looked with envy at a couple of speed boats out there jigging for cod surrounded by the shearwater masses. The photography opportunities would have been outstanding. There were fin and humpback whales breaking the calm surface of the ocean all over the place. What a difference a week makes. The weekend before we could not find one shearwater or whale from the same vantage point.
Just like the birds and the whales seek out the caplin concentrations, you have to seek out the good birding areas. It is not the same location every year and it changes from day to day. We looked with envy at a couple of speed boats out there jigging for cod surrounded by the shearwater masses. The photography opportunities would have been outstanding. There were fin and humpback whales breaking the calm surface of the ocean all over the place.
Meanwhile, in St. Vincent’s
On to St. Vincent’s. The whale and seabird activity was mediocre compared to how amazing it can be here during the caplin season. Yet the hundreds of gannets plunge diving just off the beach was evidence of at least some caplin. A flock of 100 terns resting on the inside beach contained the rare black tern that has been making the rounds at prime tern congregation sites across the southern edge of the Avalon over the last week. We filled our boots with views and photographs of this tern more at home inland on the prairie provinces of Canada but also nests in isolated marshes as far east as Quebec.
It was late afternoon as we arrived at Point Lahaye. Our day was winding down, but the excitement was about to ramp up. There were a couple thousand kittiwakes and gulls resting on the long gravel beach and more milling about off just off the beach. There was caplin action here. Flying among the kittiwakes were dark menacing birds called jaegers. These sea hawks chase the kittiwakes until they forfeit their caplin meal.
There are three species of jaeger. The immature birds are notorious identification challenges. The rarest of the three is the long-tailed jaeger. Not every birdwatcher has seen one. We were very pleased to have one that we could identify fly right over our heads and down the beach to investigate the kittiwake flock. That high was still peaking when we spotted a Sabine’s gull flying toward us and then landing among a flock of kittiwakes on the water.
This very rare small high Arctic gull has an attractive black and white triangle pattern in the wings. Even the birdwatchers with the longest track record in the province can easily count on one hand all the Sabine’s gulls they have seen over the decades. Then we realized there was already another Sabine’s gull already in the flock! The first double knock-out ever. They were a little too far away for pictures but the views through a spotting scope were thrilling. It was one those caplin birding days that just kept on giving.
It was yet another near Perfect 10 day of birding during the caplin spawning season on the Southern Avalon Peninsula.