Cape Sable, Nova Scotia today (1 Viewer)

3 of us spent the day on the SW tip of Nova Scotia (a 3 hour drive from home) to look for some "hot line" birds from the last few days. It's still early Spring here, and most of the snow has gone and the leaves are now just in bud. Warblers are just starting to trickle in. The "hot line" birds, (we saw them all) were 2 Brown thrashers, M. Indigo bunting, Hooded warbler and Eastern towhee. Other good birds we got, sort of half expected, included Bald eagles, Osprey, N.harrier, Turkey vulture, 5 species of shorebird, Ruffed grouse, and Fox sparrow -- 56 species in all for the day.

I'll put a few digiscoped pics from the day in the Gallery.

Richard

Look forward to the pictures, Richard! :t:

Sure sounds like a lovely day.

Just a query about your area out of curiosity, I've never been able to find out - what's Sable Island like for birding? Good seabird colonies? Very accessible or not? Do Canadian birders try to get there every year hoping for European birds? Or is it only good for princeps Savannah Sparrow?

Michael

Michael Frankis said:

Just a query about your area out of curiosity, I've never been able to find out - what's Sable Island like for birding? Good seabird colonies? Very accessible or not? Do Canadian birders try to get there every year hoping for European birds? Or is it only good for princeps Savannah Sparrow?

Michael

Click to expand...

Michael, and others --

Cape Sable, where we went, is an island joined to the mainland by a causeway, with a road, and is a great migrant hot spot. If you look at a map of NS, in an atlas, it's at the SW tip, between Shelburne and Yarmouth. Sable Island, where the Ipswich sparrows breed, is apparently an even greater migrant trap, but is 200 miles offshore, accessible by helicopter (extremely expensive) and only by permit, which is almost impossible to get unless you're a professional wildlife biologist. They're talking about opening it up for tourism at some undefined point in the future. Over the years, though, a few birders have been, and there is an amazing list for the Island. You should check on a map of Nova Scotia to see where I'm referring to.

Thanks for the interest,

Richard

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the info (I did know it wasn't the same as Cape Sable, but didn't know Sable Island was quite so hard to get to!)

Michael