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Notes of Restigouche
by: Mike Lushington
After a rather long absence from the birding world, occasioned by the
Canada Games and by our anual escape south, I finally managed to link up
with Andy Watson and Steve Methot this morning to resume our weekly
surveys of what is happening in our part of the world.
This has been a hard winter and, despite the mild weather of recent
days, there is still more ice around the shorelines than I often expect to
find in February, let alone the end of March. That notwithstanding, birds
are beginning to return:
Great Black-backed gulls (Goeland marin) and Herring gulls (Goeland
argente) have both begun to take up their nesting sites on the Bon Ami
Rocks in Dalhousie, while Ring-billed gulls (Goeland a bec cercle) have
begun to return in numbers. The "winter" gulls have largely moved on; we
found only one Glaucous gull (Goeland bourgmestre), an almost pure white
third year bird, in with a flock of Great Black-backs.
We found five Double-crested cormorants (Cormoran a aigrettes) on the
Rocks as well; this is early for them, but not surprisingly so. Usually,
we begin to see them in small numbers by early April. The same could be
said for the six Canada geese (Bernache du Canada) that we found at Eel
River Bar.
For years I used to predict, with considerable confidence, that we would
see our first large flocks of Robins (Merle d'Amerique) within a day or
two of April 15th. For the past three years, though, that prediction has
been off; they are ariving earlier these days and yesterday (March 29th) I
had a flock of about 30 around the feeders and environs here in Pt. La
Nim. It seems that they are moving early each year - perhaps another
indicator of the subtle effects of global warming, even after such a hard
winter as we have had. this year, they arrived at the same time as the
first of the Red-wing blackbirds (Carouge a epaulettes) and only a day
after the first of the Common grackles (Quiscale bronze).
Otherwise it is still slow locally, after the slowest winter that I can
remember.
The highlight of the morning was provided by several seals (probably
Grey seals - Tete de cheval by their size and rather characteristic head
shapes - although they were far enough away that I wouldn't defend that
identification very strongly; they may well have been Harbour seals -
Phoque veau-marin) At least two were courting; the female jumped
completely clear of the water on three occasions, while the larger male
surged up beneath. They chased and rolled around each other, obviously
having a great time, while others gathered around to watch.
This is the second spring that I have seen this activity, both right
around the Bon Ami Rocks and the Inch Arran Lighthouse area in
Dalhousie.
Mike Lushington
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