New Brunswick on a Shoestring

We set foot on New Brunswick shores following a 72 km voyage across the Bay of Fundy. This crossing marked our last chance of seeing east coast seabirds, for we had abandoned our plans to visit Grand Manan Island having already seen Atlantic Puffins near Cape Sable.

The ferry runs twice daily, at 8am and 4pm, and with promise of the sun at our backs, we boarded the earlier of the two.

A Great Shearwater cautiously
passes by

It wasn’t long before we realised the entire bay was fogged in. Visibility was limited to 100 metres for most of our 3-hour journey. Ultimately, it was going to take a lot of luck for us to see the front of the vessel from where we stood, let alone distant shearwaters. However, I persistently peered through my binoculars, and upon reaching the Digby shelf, saw birds approaching us in the mist. Great Black-backed Gulls. Not what I was hoping for. But there were birds below the gulls, flapping and gliding with much more grace, Great Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters as well as a couple of Wilson’s Storm-Petrels! In the end, the Greats outnumbered the Sooties 13-2, but what I saw was probably only the smallest fraction of what was happening beyond the fog in the Bay of Fundy.

A Northern Cardinal sings in Yarmouth

We left Nova Scotia having seen 151 species.

New Brunswick has been one of the most pleasant surprises of our trip. Finally, we can say the weather is warm. There are less bugs. There are more birds.

Crossing the Saint John River
into Fredericton

We followed the Nile of New Brunswick (the Saint John River) from Saint John in the south, to Saint-Leonard in the north, near the French-speaking province of Quebec. As far as we are concerned, we are already in Quebec, for French is the spoken language of the towns in northern New Brunswick, and our skills are tested daily.

So here we are, camping at the base of Mont Carleton, and soon to be climbing the province’s highest peak to glimpse two little birds…the Blackpoll Warbler (the last of the twenty-two east coast warblers) and one of the rarest and most elusive of North American songbirds, Bicknell’s Thrush.

New Birds:

147. Roseate Tern

148. Brown-headed Cowbird

149. Northern Cardinal

150. Great Shearwater

151. Sooty Shearwater

152. Turkey Vulture

153. Downy Woodpecker

154. Eastern Phoebe

155. Gray Catbird

156. Purple Martin

157. Chimney Swift

158. Eastern Bluebird

159. Cliff Swallow

160. Indigo Bunting

161. Winter Wren

162. Philadelphia Vireo

163. Nashville Warbler

164. Scarlet Tanager

165. Wilson's Warbler

166. Canada Warbler

New Mammals:

16. Eastern Gray Squirrel