A photo dump of some of the birds and scenery I saw over the weekend:
Arctic Terns are back at their breeding site in St. Vincent's. This is probably the best site I know of for studying the differences between Common & Arctic Tern on the ground and in flight. Someone needs to write a book on this difficult group of birds!
A mixed flock of White-winged & Surf Scoters mostly consisted of 1st summer males:
One of very few 1st summer Gannets I've seen. This age group could easily have something think they have an immature Booby! Brown Booby doesn't show the white-rump as in this bird. But beware of Red-footed Booby! ;)
An adult female Red Phalarope near Portugal Cove South was a treat! We rarely see this plumage, let alone up close looks. This bird was injured explaining why it was walking around in a small marsh.
A Little Blue Heron was an obvious highlight from a days birding yesterday. Lancy first spotted this bird just before it flew away and landed by a small pool of water in someones yard where we had excellent looks at it while it fed on tadpoles!
This was a lifer for me! The dark blue and purple sheen to the neck & head were stunning!
This morning I woke up unusually early so decided to check out Cape Spear for sunrise.
It ended up being one of the most exciting mornings I've experienced out there.
There was a lot of Rose root growing in the cracks of the rocky coastline.
A huge gannet feeding frenzy was just offshore during the early morning sunshine:
There are currently 3 large icebergs very close to shore in this area. They made for great photograph subjects in the early morning light:
A stunning sight along the Cape Spear road:
I've always wanted to get a nice photo of a gannet gliding against an iceberg backdrop. Not quite up to the quality I want, but it'll do for now:
Mourning Warblers - always an exciting bird to come across. It is an uncommon but widespread breeding on the island. This was my 5th one this month - the most I've seen during Spring singing season on the Avalon.
