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Introduction
An Introduction to Birds of the Southeast Avalon
Bird life in the southeast Avalon, defined as the area between Renews and St. Vincents, is arguably some of the best in Atlantic Canada, and indeed some of the finest in Canada and North America. Outstanding birding is one of the area’s best-kept secrets.
Where to Watch the Birds
Personal knowledge of key birding areas, from historical records gleaned from the discontinued listserv “nf.birds” and more recent “eBird” records have been used to identify eight important birding areas within the southeast Avalon. They include:
- The Renews area
- Bear Cove-Cappahayden
- Chance Cove Provincial Park (CCPP)
- The Portugal Cove South (PCS) area
- The Cape Race Road (CRR)
- Biscay Bay
- The Trepassey area
- The Cape Pine-St. Shotts-St. Vincent’s area
The greater Renews area provides the best birding in all of Newfoundland and Labrador. A close second in the province is the Trepassey area on the southern shore.
The distance from Renews to St. Vincent’s on Route 10 via Portugal Cove South (PCS) and Trepassey is 84 kms (52 miles). As the crow flies, the distance is considerably less. With no stops for wildlife viewing, no side trip to the Mistaken Point Fossil Site, or stopping to photograph or explore the unique barrens scenery reminiscent of northern Scotland, you can easily drive the road in one and a half hours. In most seasons you will need two days to properly explore its birding potential and more if you decide to do some trail walking.
In any season serious birders will find the drive south and east to Cape Race on the Cape Race Road from Portugal Cove South an essential part of their visit to the area. This 21 km road is paved to Freshwater Cove, about half way to the Cape. A non-stop drive to the Cape takes about half an hour. Fitting in a guided tour to the Mistaken Point Fossil Site, a World Heritage Site, accessed along the road is well worth the diversion. This walk is doubly important if you do not have time to take one of the other spectacular coastal walks outlined in another section of the website.
An unparalleled resource for visitors to the province is eBird. It provides an instant snapshot on what is being seen across the province, by sub-region, and by “Hot Spots”. The eBird sub-region for the southeast Avalon is “Avalon Peninsula – St. John’s”.
For a complete list of eBird hot spots on the Avalon check out: https://ebird.org/region/CA-NL-ON/hotspots. Readers will note that the southeast Avalon area contains most of the Avalon hot spots. A perusal of eBird provincial records might convince you of the importance of the area since it contains SEVEN or the top ten hot-spots in the province.
The Bird Checklist
The local area Bird Checklist is based on records in “nf.birds” (https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nf.birds) and eBird records https://ebird.org/region/CA-NL-ON?yr=all&m=&rank=mrec
Since its inception in 1998 “nf.birds” provided the key source for sharing sightings and important observations on individual species. In 2024 the listserv was discontinued. Now the only current source of information on bird sightings is eBird. Most of the birders who used nf.birds have switched to eBird. Many have entered their historical records into the eBird database. The Checklist is based on both databases. It is unfortunate that the design of eBird severely limits space for important observational information. The Newfoundland Birds Facebook page can also be a resource which occasionally unearths photos of uncommon birds that would be otherwise unknown to the birding community.
The Checklist provides a complete list of the birds found in the area. Key features include breeding status and a unique guide to the relative commonness of each species in spring, summer, fall and winter.
By any standard the 330+ species on the Checklist is an impressive total for our corner of the Avalon Peninsula. 2024 eBird statistics by Atlantic province are as follows:
- Nova Scotia (NS): 470
- New Brunswick (NB): 437
- Prince Edward Island (PEI): 327
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 426
Leading eBird hot-spots in Atlantic Canada are Seal Island, NS, 335, and Grand Manan NB, 260. Neither of these island locations are particularly accessible. This is particularly the case in all seasons for relatively remote Seal Island. A regular year-around ferry service provides access to Grand Manan but visitors need to consider spending at least two days minimum. By comparison all the hot spots on the southeast Avalon are completely accessible by car. If a winter excursion to the area is considered, road access to Cape Race and Cape Pine may be limited occasionally by snow drifts.
While the Checklist provides the best overall detail on individual species, a detailed discussion of seasonal highlights entitled Four Season Birding in the Southeast Avalon is also provided in this section.
Four Season Birding in the Southeast Avalon
There are many reasons to consider southeast Avalon birding exceptional throughout the year. For years visitors have been coming singly, in small groups, or tour groups, mostly in late June or early July. Birders are essentially looking for the region’s enigmatic seabirds and pelagics and a chance to see a good variety of nesting boreal birds.
In very recent years a few tour operators have recognized that late summer and early fall can be very productive as well. Indeed, the southeast Avalon can be attractive in all seasons highlighted by a variety of migrants and vagrants from every direction. This paper includes a detailed discussion including highlights of each season.
Eventually I expect that word-of-mouth, eBird records, sites such as mine, and continued improvement in accommodations and services, visitors will come in all seasons.
For this reason the highlights of southeast Avalon birding is presented by the season: spring, summer, fall and winter. The calendar dates follow those used by Nature Newfoundland and Labrador’s pioneering Checklist of the Birds of Insular Newfoundland and its Continental Shelf Waters (1999).
Dates by season are conventionally based on the spring and fall equinoxes, and winter and summer solstices as follows:
- Spring: March 21 to June 20
- Summer: June 21 to September 22:
- Fall: September 23 to December 20
- Winter: December 21 to March 20
The physical changes in each season are a little different than elsewhere in North America. The high-latitude, the extreme eastern longitude, and the presence of the cold Labrador Current offshore creates climatic conditions and a landscape attractive to resident Woodland Caribou and Willow Ptarmigan. In many ways the birds and wildlife are similar to the sub-polar regions of the Canadian arctic. A key difference is the southeast Avalon is not difficult to access and not expensive to visit. Winter lingers and spring comes later to eastern Newfoundland. First-time visitors will find the normally early-leafing willows bare until early June and lilacs in full bloom in mid-July.
Black-legged Kittiwake with a Capelin, the key food staple for seabirds and whales
For details of birding in each season see: Four Season Birding in the Southeast Avalon available in this section.
In addition to the Checklist and the Four Season analysis, readers will find further details on aspects of birding in the southeast Avalon elsewhere in the Birds section including: