Eh! Canada - Part 1

Canada Moose Count: 1
Canada Black Bear Count: 1
Canada Bird Count: 50
Canada Life Birds: 1

For our two days off (Tuesday and Wednesday), we headed to Canada. It’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive to Kouchibouguac National Park. When we got to the border crossing, the Border Patrol officer asked where we were going. Kind of hard to say when you can’t pronounce the name of the place! He told us how to pronounce it then asked us a bunch of questions about where we were from, what we were going to do in Canada and checked out our passports. Then, before he gave us back our passports he again asked us what the name of the park we were going to - Ugh! We still can’t pronounce the name.



Border crossing into Canada



On the way to the park we saw both a Black Bear and a Moose along the highway. No pictures-as soon as we stopped to get the camera out, they took off.



Can you believe it - they have a Texas stop sign here in Canada:



After lunch we headed straight to the Park.



Kouchibouguac means “river of long tides”.
“koo-she-boo-gwack"

This is our first look at the Atlantic Ocean:





On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean.

[In the North Atlantic the currents move clockwise, the most famous being the Gulf Stream which carries warm water from the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico up the east coast of the USA and then out across to the British Isles.]



The Piping Plover builds its nest on the ground by digging a small depression and lining it with pebbles and shells. The eggs become easy targets for predators such as foxes, gulls, crows and ravens. Measures have been put into place to give the piping plover a fighting chance. The nesting areas are closed from May to July to keep humans away. Wire mesh fencing is placed around nests to prevent predators from getting at the eggs while allowing the birds to leave and entry. Video cameras are set up near nesting sites.

The Piping Plovers are just starting to arrive and the fencing is being put up to close off the nesting area.



There are ten trails in the park. A couple of them were closed due to a storm last December. We hiked the rest of the trails and part of one of the closed trails. Although it isn’t a very ‘birdy’ park, we did see a few nice birds.


Snake


Brown Creeper


Black-throated Blue Warbler


American Redstart


Moose Droppings

This isn't the end - keep on reading Canada - Part 2