Our first destination this morning was the small town of Elliston, at the northeastern tip of the Bonavista Peninsula. After an hour and a half drive, we arrived in the town, and made our way east to the "Puffin Viewing Site", where Atlantic Puffins could be seen close by without going on a boat trip. There was a short (1/2 kilometer) trail out to the site and of course it was on a scenic shoreline.
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Elliston Puffin Viewing Site
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The puffins, of which there are perhaps 2000 to 4000 breeding pairs, were easily visible on an island only about 30 yards off the point at the end of the trail.
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Atlantic Puffins at Elliston, Newfoundland
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Atlantic Puffins at Elliston, Newfoundland
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I took one short video of the puffins, but it has a lot of wind noise and is a bit shaky because of the wind. It can be viewed here. You might want to turn the volume down before you play it. I decided to concentrate on still shots of the puffins here instead of making more shaky videos.
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Atlantic Puffins at Elliston, Newfoundland
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Atlantic Puffins "hovering" in the high winds at Elliston
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Atlantic Puffins at a nest burrow
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There were a few other seabirds here as well, including our best views of Black Guillemot.
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Black Guillemot at Elliston, Newfoundland
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Black Guillemot at Elliston, Newfoundland
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Black Guillemot at Elliston, Newfoundland
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From here it was a short drive northwest to the Cape Bonavista lighthouse, where there was a nice interpretive center, and an even more accessible (though smaller) nesting colony of Atlantic Puffins.
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Atlantic Puffins at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland
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Atlantic Puffin at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland
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From here we drove southwest, back down the other side of the Bonavista Peninsula, to Terra Nova National Park. We enjoyed the scenery throughout the park.
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Terra Nova NP, Newfoundland
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Terra Nova NP, Newfoundland
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Terra Nova NP, Newfoundland
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Terra Nova NP, Newfoundland
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There are several trails in the park, but we didn't have time to explore them all. On the drive to the Ochre Hill Trail, we saw our second and third species of butterfly on the trip. At Cape St. Mary's, we had seen the near-endemic Short-tailed Swallowtail but there was nothing blooming and they never sat still for photos. Today's butterflies had some nectar sources so we were able to get good looks at Canadian Tiger Swallowtails and Spring Azure.
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Spring Azure at Terra Nova NP
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The flowers that were blooming most abundantly were the native species of rhododendron, called Rhodora, which is what this swallowtail is feeding on.
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Canadian Tiger Swallowtail on Rhodora
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The parts of the Ochre Hill Trail that we walked had a few birds, with the most cooperative being a group of Boreal Chickadees.
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Boreal Chickadee at Terra Nova NP
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Boreal Chickadee at Terra Nova NP
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Our final destination for the day was a geological site, the Dover Fault (east of the town of Dover, which is northeast of Gambo). This site is where two continental plates join. Part of northwestern Africa (Morocco) drifted westward with North America millions of years ago, and the gap between the hills in this photo is that fault line.
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The Dover Fault (gap in top center)
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Of course we were keeping our eyes open for other things, and at the parking area we found another butterfly, a Milbert's Tortoiseshell. It is a common species in Michigan but after a few chilly days on the Avalon (it never got to 60 F), we were having a day in the low 70s and it was nice to see any insects actually.
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Milbert's Tortoiseshell, near Dover, Newfoundland
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We drove to the town of Gander for the night.
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