Migration is very evident nowadays with plenty of shorebirds around and even a few warblers in the backyard.
Frequent visits to Cape Spear (the most Easterly point in North America) have rewarded me with great views of the 3 regular species of shearwater... I love shearwaters... a lot... I might even get a name change...
Anyway, exciting shearwater news the other day came from Nova Scotia. A few Barolo Shearwaters (I'll be honest, I had no idea about this split) were seen offshore from Nova Scotia! White-faced Storm-petrels were nearby as well!!!
I would do anything to see those species in Newfoundland... from land - and I think all NL birders would as well...
Unfortunately, the island is surrounded by a ton of relatively shallow water so we aren't very fortunate in terms of getting deep-water pelagic bird...
Anyway, we do get Sea Otters - my friend and I were doing a short hike the other day and saw a family of Sea Otters feeding on fish and literally following us for over 3km during our hike!
A Common Murre was nearby as well:
I've also been filming some of the Alcids in flight (Common Murre and Puffins so far) - there's a dearth of information online (and in general) about alcid identification in flight. I found that while I was in Denmark I was disappointed that I couldn't find any information to help me out with ID'ing those distant alcids in flight - and the low rate of flybys meant that I wasn't able to learn via observation as fast as I would have liked...
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'm thinking of putting together a video of Atlantic alcids in flight (Razorbill, Thick-billed Murre, and Common Murre) - to help people learn how to distinguish between them!
Tell me what you think about the idea - I might need the encouragement to follow through :p
