Twillingate and Rocky Harbour Gros Morne Nl June 11-18 2019

The 3rd and 4th stops on our tour of Newfoundland were Twillingate and Rocky Harbour.  Twillingate is popular with tourists and as such, has musical dinner theatre.  The staff feed you and provide the entertainment.  It was lot of fun.  I wish we would have taken the ferry to Joe Batts Arm as we found out too late that it was an eclectic haven for artists but we still found plenty to do in our 4 day stay.  

This is view from our AirB&B at Twillingate.

Because of winds this was one of the few times we could take advantage of the deck.  This was a converted fisherman's house that the hostess said was at least 150 years old.

The floors looked to be original and the height to the beams is around 3 meters.  There were 2 bedrooms upstairs.  This little house served us well for 4 nights.

Black and White Warblers are common here.  This one was on trail to a Beothuk centre.  Beothuks are a race of indigenous people that are now extinct.

I liked this shot of a Junco taking off.

We got excited when a Northern Gannet flew by our deck.  When we went further south we saw 100's of them but that will be in another blog.

A Northern Goshawk had a nest close to a trail we were on and put up quite a fuss.  We were warned about it by another hiker we met who said it kept dive bombing him although he called it an Osprey.  They can be quite aggressive.  I think it was Attila the Hun who had a painting of one of these birds on his helmet.

Next stop was Rocky Harbour.  This location was chosen for its proximity to Gros Morne National Park.

Our accommodation here was at a very nice boutique motel.  We were in the red roofed unit on the lower left.

This mountain is at the centre of Gros Morne.  It was closed to hiking because it was Rock Ptarmigan nesting season.  They have found that by restricting hiking in this period the nesting success increased substantially. 

A White-throated Sparrow.

A backlit Savanah Sparrow.

A Pine Grosbeak met us at the trailhead of a hike in Gros Morne.

We noticed this Merlin sitting on a piece of driftwood.  It wasn't until I put the shot into the computer that I saw the Spotted Sandpiper it had captured.  The garbage on the perch was just a hint of the junk we found on every beach we explored.

Newfoundland has a problem with Moose.  In some areas they are culled.  Four moose were introduced to the Island of Newfoundland near the town of Howley in 1904. The (estimated) 150,000 descendants of these hungry herbivores have left an indelible mark on this province’s identity, culture and landscape.  Buffalo were also introduced in 1964 on an island, but in their attempt to get at ocean spray salt licks and better grazing they kept falling off cliffs.  There are none left.  No kidding.

The Pitcher Plant is the provincial flower of Newfoundland.

Finally.  A picture of a Short-billed Dowitcher I am certain of.  That's because there are no Long-billed Dowitchers here.  Taken on the beach in Rocky Harbour.

A family of Mallards was resting on the beach.  I was wondering how to get a picture of them without their heads tucked in.

As if on cue, they looked up in a perfect pose-the front ones stayed low while the back one stood erect, forming a dollop of ducklings.

It appeared that Yellow-bellied Flycatchers were the most common flycatchers here as we saw quite a few.

Rusty Blackbirds nest in Gros Morne.  We think this one had a nest nearby as it appeared agitated.

One morning we hiked with a group into Gros Morne tablelands.  We learned from our park naturalist that the rocks  provide a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth’s mantle lie exposed.

It wasn't really cold but it was windy.  Next stop was up to Newfoundland's northernmost point and St. Anthonys.  That will be in the next blog.

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