Puffinpalooza

My puffin dreams came true today when I saw not one but two entire puffin colonies, each consisting of hundreds of adorable fat little birds, up close and personal! We had about a four hour drive today from Twillingate to the Bonavista Peninsula, which juts out on the east central section of Newfoundland. We decided on a loop route which took us around the shoreline from northwest to southeast and ended in Port Rexton where we’re spending the night.

Bonavista has some very old villages and towns but its also known for its UNESCO Discovery Geopark which is defined as “a unified geographical area where sites and landscapes of geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development.” The Bonavista geopark includes more than a dozen sites scattered across the peninsula and first on our list was the Dungeon Provincial Park located in the town of Bonavista on the northern tip of the peninsula. This site is a collapsed sea cave (also known as a “gloup,” from an Old Norse word for chasm) where soft sedimentary rock surrounded by hard igneous rock was eaten away from below by wave action, eventually causing the roof to cave in. The two arched openings on the ocean side will eventually be eaten through, at which point the feature will no longer be a cave but instead a couple of igneous sea stacks (stone towers in the ocean that were once part of the mainland).  

The cave is located on a huge open grassy bluff that also serves as an extensive free-range cattle pasture. These cows have the best view in all the land! It was wild to see them just munching on grass right along the edge of the cliffs.

A short distance from the cows and cave is the Cape BonavistaLighthouse which dates to 1843 and used seal oil to light its red and white lamps. The original pulley apparatus that made the beacon revolve is still in place and we were able to walk up the short two flights to see it. This lighthouse is apparently one of the most photographed places on Newfoundland. Although there is currently scaffolding on several sides while repairs are being made, we could still see it’s unique red and white striped exterior.

The first lighthouse keeper was also a cooper who made barrels in his spare time.

A special bonus for me was that nowhere in the hours of trip research I’d done did I find that a puffin colony uses a massive rock sea stack about 200 feet offshore from the lighthouse. So today’s FIRST puffin experience was right at the lighthouse! Pictures below from SECOND puffin experience.

We took a quick drive through the historic town of Bonavista, named by Italian-born English explorer John Cabot who arrived in 1497 and reportedly said “Oh, Happy Sight.” Enough said about European colonizers. The town developed as an important sealing and fishing colony occupied by Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French seamen, but the English were the ones who stayed.   

From Bonavista it was a short drive to the town of Elliston, is famous for two things: being the “Root Cellar Capital of the World” and its seasonal puffin island colony which can be viewed from a bluff about 50 feet away. These were both things I was dying to see. There are more than 130 recorded stone and sod root cellars and amazingly as many as half of them are still being used today! They’re closely associated with outport communities, which are small historic Newfoundland and Labrador coastal villages that relied on fishing and/or sealing for their economic survival. Root cellars were critical for preserving vegetables and other perishable goods through the winters. In 2013, Root Cellars were designated as a Distinctive Cultural Tradition and Practice.

Don't worry- I'll stop at two root cellar photos. If you want to see more, you know where to find me.

The Elliston Puffin Viewing Site is on every map and is reportedly the closest view of Atlantic Puffins from the land in all of North America! It's about a 10 minute walk across an open grassy bluff. We’d stopped at a small shop on the way into town and a man there who’s a resident and professional photographer told us that there are only a few days every June (they are typically there between May and September) when the puffins congregate in large numbers on their breeding grounds and today was one of those days. He estimated somewhere between 500 and 700 birds were there. It certainly seemed like more to me. The walk itself was stunning- right on the open ocean, amazing cliffs and sea stacks.  

The weather had been weird all day- rain, clouds, bright sun, fog, but when we got to the puffins the sun came out again and the only thing we had to contend with was a super strong sea breeze that almost blew people over a few times. Another local told us that the puffins love this weather because they need all the help they can get to get off the ground. Part of what makes them so incredibly cute is that they have big round bodies and little bitty short wings-completely disproportionate compared to just about every other bird. They love the sea stacks because a) no real predators for their ground nests and b) they can basically jump off the cliff to get some lift to help them get airborne.      

Photos above courtesy of Jenmac and her amazing new phone! There were maybe a dozen people there when we arrived so plenty of room to sit and watch. I was so blown away- I’ve never seen anything like that before. The birds were so active- hopping around on their cute orange webbed feet, preening, visiting, flying off into the water and then back again- constant motion and a blur of black, white, and orange. We also had the extreme luck of twice having puffins actually land on the mainland cliff edge where we were only about 10 feet away.  I didn’t want to ever leave!

All this excitement sure made us thirsty so we headed for the historic town of Trinity on our way to Port Rexton where we are staying tonight about half a mile from the Port Rexton Brewery. Trinity is somewhat of an anomaly here in that it looks very much like a commemorative colonial New England town (picture min Strawberry Bank if you’re a New Englander reading this) with a mishmash of clapboard houses and museum-like shops where people craft like it’s the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. Cool for some, but a quick walk through town and we were ready for our brewery.

Updated Wish List Tally:

Icebergs, Moose, Caribou = 0

Whale = 1 but unfortunately it was dead and floating in the bay in Elliston

Puffins = 1,000 !!!!!