Cape Saint Mary's

Our last two days in Newfoundland were spent in the area around Cape Saint Mary's, the nesting grounds of 24,000 northern gannets, 20,000 black-legged kittiwake, 20,000 common murre, and 2,000 thick-billed murre.

The birds' nests occupy nearly every ...

...square...

...foot of flat space on the cliffs and sea stacks at the Cape. The sight is spectacular - as is the smell.

 
The other spectacular thing about the Cape is how close the birds are, with many nests less than 30 feet from convenient perches for viewing. The birds don't seem to mind the attention.

And they get a lot of it. This is one of the most popular viewing spots near Bird Rock, a 300 foot sea stack covered with nesting gannets.

Jude selects a somewhat less popular perch to study some razorbills.

If 30 feet isn't close enough for you, you can simply look up and wait for a gannet to fly by a few feet overhead.

This one is returning with fresh nesting material.

The Cape separates the cold waters of Placentia and St Mary's Bays. When the wind is onshore in the summer the fog rolls in. The wind is often onshore and the Cape sees over 200 days of fog per year.

Fog can make bird watching difficult...

.. but it can give a photograph a nice atmosphere.