Today was mostly a travel day, with a few specific stops planned. We left Gander early this morning, with our first destination a dirt road going south of the Trans-Canada Highway just west of the town of Appleton. A Black-backed Woodpecker had been reported recently about 6 kilometers down this road. The first 3 kilometers were mostly aspen woodlands, but after that it changed to mostly spruce with some mixed deciduous aspen and alder. This photo is fairly typical of a lot of the boreal forest that covers much of the central part of the island of Newfoundland.
We found a lot of birds, mostly warblers, including this Northern Waterthrush, a species that is possibly one of the most common breeding warblers in Newfoundland, but they are not particularly cooperative for photos.
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| Northern Waterthrush |
We went in 12 kilometers and did not locate any Black-backed Woodpeckers, but had a good birding morning. Separate eBird checklists were kept for 3 kilometer segments of the road, as well as a stop right near the exit off the Trans-Canada Highway, and links to those checklists are provided here for those who might be interested in the details.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112820055
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112820344
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112821035
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112821487
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112821807
We had several Canadian Tiger Swallowtails along this road, some of which posed nicely for photos.
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| Canadian Tiger Swallowtail |
From there, we continued west to the city of Grand Falls-Windsor, where
we stopped at some sewage treatment ponds where we found a distant Wood
Duck, somewhat of a rarity in Newfoundland, along with the usual
Mallards, American Black Ducks, and Ring-necked Ducks. At the north end
of town, we went to a city park with several trails and ponds, the Corduroy Brook Trails.
Here we saw the typical common breeding warblers, including this cooperative Wilson's Warbler.
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| Wilson's Warbler |
The vegetation was mixed coniferous and deciduous, and the Rhodora (locally called Wild Honeysuckle) blooming was increasing by the day, with many of these low shrubs in full bloom today.
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| Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) |
Another species that is more widespread in northern woods, including in Michigan, was Bunchberry, a small member of the dogwood family.
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| Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) |
Our first dragonfly of the trip was seen here also, a Four-spotted Skimmer which is a fairly common species of the north woods from Alaska to Newfoundland, and including northern (and parts of southern) Michigan.
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| Four-spotted Skimmer (Libellula quadrimaculata) |
Continuing west, I had identified a spot that was regularly reporting Rock Ptarmigans. Most birders to Newfoundland do not see this species at all, and the main way to see one is to walk the 12-mile round-trip trail to the top of Gros Morne Mountain in that National Park. This site was marked in eBird as "restricted access". After contacting eBird reviewers in Newfoundland, I was told that it was a road that required a high clearance vehicle, and possibly all-wheel drive, but access was not restricted for any other reason. It was 3 kilometers from the turnoff on the Trans-Canada Highway to the summit, rising 1300 feet in elevation to the peak at about 1680 feet. Not very high, but a steep and rough road. When we got there, we tried to drive up with our high-clearance rental, a compact SUV, but we started slipping after the first 100 meters. So, on to plan C (plan A was to drive to the top, plan B was to drive as far as the "big rocks" half way up and walk the rest), which was to walk the whole thing.
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| Mount Seemore |
Nancy stayed at the car, and I began the relentless climb up to the top of the road where there was a communications tower (this was the maintenance road for that tower). Part way up I could see some snow still near the top. Where I was headed was above that, and to the left. There were lots of birds on the way up, Among them were the only two Canada Jays of the trip. They can be quite inconspicuous at the peak of their breeding season.
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| Canada Jay at Mount Seemore, Newfoundland |
The pair of jays were pretty much ignoring me, as they seemed intent on finding the nest of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which was extremely aggitated while the jays kept looking around in the spruces.
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Mount Seemore, Newfoundland |
After almost 2 hours, I reached the peak which was almost devoid of vegetation, and very windy. Perfect habitat for Rock Ptarmigans.
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| Summit of Mount Seemore |
I spent about 20 minutes carefully picking my way around the rocks here, and made a short video (view it here) before I had located any ptarmigan. The view from the top was spectacular, and included Birchy Lake adjacent to the highway.
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| View from summit of Mount Seemore |
After another 20 minutes of searching, I flushed a Rock Ptarmigan, which flew over a ridge and out of view. Not a very satisfying sighting, and not a life bird, but an objective successfully met after a lot of work. A couple of American Robins in this barren, rocky place seemed quite out of place, but apparently had come up here from the stunted spruce woodlands that were a couple hundred yards back down the road. After 5.1 miles of walking, over the course of 3 hours, I got back down to the car where I was greeted by a butterfly that turned out to be a lifer, Green Comma.
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| Green Comma (Polygonia faunus) |
For those who are interested, my eBird checklist for Mount Seemore is here:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S112801238
From here, we continued on about an hour to Corner Brook, where we spent the next 3 nights.
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