A spring refuge for birds — The Codroy Valley
Looking for a little birding retreat before things got busy for me in my field of work, I decided to take a four-day weekend to the Codroy Valley. It was hard to find last minute company for such a trip but Alison Mews was up for it.
We did not know really what to expect for very few birdwatchers have been there in April. There would be waterfowl as the Codroy Valley is a wellknown location for waterfowl during migration.
It is a 850-km drive from St. John’s to Doyles in the Codroy Valley. The forecasted snowfall started as we passed through Deer Lake and continued in earnest all the way to Doyles. The heavy wet snow was melting as fast as it hit the pavement but covered the ground and clung to the trees creating a Christmas like scene.
It was not exactly the warm and comforting spring atmosphere we were hoping for. As we neared the Codroy Valley proper we started seeing flocks of robins flying through the snow.
In South Branch a bare patch beside the road was swarming with activity. There were dozens of robins, 30 common grackles and many goldfinches and purple finches.
It was late afternoon when reached the Codroy Valley.
We had time to kill before we could check into our cabin so we decided to have a little preview of the Codroy River estuary.
Behind the wetlands interpretation building through the heavy snow we could make out a good number of common mergansers, common goldeneyes, black ducks, northern pintails and a few hundred geese loafing in the marsh.
A red-winged blackbird sang in the snow from the alders.
We drove farther along the road to the first hay field.
Were all the dark humps in that field really geese? Through the heavy snow fall we counted a staggering 1,100 geese grazing shoulder to shoulder on the grass. We circuited the estuary and also checked the vast hay fields off Loch Lomond Road. It was too snowy to count the geese but there more big flocks than we were expecting
Saturday dawned with overcast skies and flurries. There was five cm of fresh snow cover on the ground.
Was this spring?
It felt too much like a winter scene for the southwestern corner of Newfoundland in late April. Before we started the goose count we got distracted by other birds.
It soon became apparent there had been a fallout of robins, purple finches and pine siskins. A fallout is a term bird watchers use to describe a sudden stoppage of bird migration due to harsh weather conditions resulting in large numbers of birds descending to the ground.
Bare patches of ground were teeming with birds.
Flocks of 20-50 robins were everywhere on damp bare patches in the fields, the ditches and even on tidal flats. They put their normally feisty spirits in their back pockets as they fed packed in together on the restricted patches of bare ground. It was desperate times even if temporary.
Often in the same places as the robins were dozens of purple finches and pine siskins looking for food on the ground.
The one birdfeeder that we found was a beehive of activity with finches, sparrows and five dozen grackles.
A soggy and tired roughlegged hawk sat on the shoulder of the road perhaps having just crossed the Cabot Strait in the snow.
It difficult to stop looking through the mixed flocks of birds but we had a mission to count the geese.
The count took a couple hours. Carefully with the spotting scope I counted what could be seen from various vantage points on both sides of the estuary. I added up the numbers and came up with a total of 4,870 Canada geese.
That is a lot of honkers but there were parts of the shore we could not see.
We realized how many geese were being missed when an eagle flew over flushing some of them out into the open.
I estimated there were 6,000 Canada geese in the Grand Codroy River estuary on April 22. In addition to that we saw 750 geese feeding on the eel grass in the Little Codroy River estuary.
This shows the importance of the Grand Codroy River estuary to geese.
It is not only an important stop over and refueling point on their migration north but also serves as a refuge for geese and other birds temporarily grounded by bad weather. There were also some 800 ducks present in the estuary, mostly goldeneye, mergansers, scaup, black ducks, green-winged teal, wigeon and a nice sprinkling of other species.
And yes, we saw the great blue herons. A flock of eight arrived just before left on the Monday.
The Codroy Valley is spring refuge for birds and a retreat for birders.