Friday, June 19, 2009

Puff...puff...puff....puffins!

What a beautiful day! Forecast was for 27 degrees!! We decided it would be a good day to see icebergs (if they hadn't melted in the heat), puffin, and whale watching. We drove out to Bay Bulls, about a 1 1/2 hour drive, and had a choice of vendors there. We decided on Gatherall's Boat Tours...



After an enjoyable picnic lunch on the water, daring each other to step into the cold ocean water (I went the deepest), and playing with rocks, we boarded the boat at 1:45 pm.

Just out into the bay, was a "growler" (the remains of what was an iceberg). 'Cause of the warm weather, there aren't too many left. A short time later, our captain took us to Gull Island -- appropriately named for the over 1 million birds that reside there every year. It was here that we saw a zillion puffins, murres (from the penguin family), and a couple of other kinds.


It was pretty neat how they nested and to see that many birds flying around.
We learned a lot of interesting facts about the puffins and other birds, one of which is that puffins mate for life -- as the captain put it "they are good Christians".

The search for whales was a little harder than finding all the birds! In fact, we each spotted a couple whales, but only from a distance. We didn't get nice and close to them like we did when in the zodiac in Cape Breton. Apparently, in two weeks time there will be hundreds of whales in the exact spots we were in today! Deon saw a harbour porpoise (the smallest of the whales), and Mom, Nathan & I spotted minke whales a few times (spends 15-20 minutes under water before reappearing for a brief moment for air and is then down again).

No comments:

Post a Comment