Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The sound of a seabird colony, and the ammoniac smell, is likely to greet you before the birds themselves
come into view, especially at Cape St. Mary's, which is often shrouded in fog. Seabird colonies are sometimes
dubbed “bazaars” because of the cacophony. As you walk over the wind-shorn heath toward the cape, the dis-
cordant chorus of seabird cries rises from the cliffs as if out of a natural orchestra pit, ranging from the harsh,
high-pitched tri-syllabic cries of the black-legged kittiwakes—a small gull that nests on the narrow cliff
ledges—to the low, guttural mumbles and murmurings of their neighbors, the murres. Then the birds them-
selves come into view—first the gannets, great white birds with black-tipped wings shuttling to and from their
nesting site atop Bird Rock, a mammoth sea stack split off from the cape. On a clear day, from a distance, the
cape looks like a meadow resplendent with a crop of white daisies. At the tip of the cape, you can look across a
vertigo-inducing crevice to the top of Bird Rock, where the nesting gannets occupy every square meter. The
colony has grown in recent years, so much so that it has overspread to the mainland.
Bird Rock, at Cape St. Mary's, is the most iconic of Newfoundland's many great seabird colonies.
The air surrounding the headland is a maelstrom of birds. The gannets describe wide circles out to sea, their
streamlined white bodies flashing in the sun like the fuselages of distant jets. As you watch, they fold their
wings and plunge into the waves, sending up spouts of spray. Larger, bushy exhalations mark the presence of
humpback and minke whales as they plow through the waters, gulping down quintals of capelin. All the fishers
of the ecosystem are concentrated here, including humans in their boats, which seem dwarfed as they bob in
the great sea swells that spend themselves against the foot of the gray cliffs.
