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Published: September 7th 2013
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The place we are staying in Perce, Quebec, is a very small motel but we had breakfast (coffee, fruit, croissants, juice) in the owner's home along with five other guests. We were the only English speaking people and therefore not very popular. A nice couple from France did try to engage us in conversation and we nodded and smiled a lot.
There were about 35 people on our boat for the beautiful ride out to Bonaventure Island this morning and when we arrived at the island they divided us into English and French language groups for the orientation. There were two people in our group, at least we had some personal attention!
Bonaventure is a unit of Quebec Provincial Parks and it is a glorious place. We walked for five hours, first through a lush forest of both coniferous and deciduous trees on a trail through the middle of the island. When we reached the other side of the island we encountered the spectacle of a huge colony of an estimated 80,000 gannets, the largest in the world or North America depending on what pamphlet one reads. We don't know what happened to the other people on the boat,
Perce, Quebec
Taken from the pier as we were waiting for our boat to Bonaventure Island. we didn't see anyone else on the trail and we were the only tourists at the colony. While I was off taking photos, Joe had a long talk with the Quebec Parks ranger and he learned a lot about the natural history of the gannets and about the Quebec parks system. We stayed there for over an hour, the birds were so interesting. They were busy feeding their big fluffy chicks, fighting, preening, and flying to get the herring for the chicks. While there we were reminded of our good friend, Tony, who personifies birds by associating their calls with English words. We know he would have said these gannets were all saying, "Watch out, watch out, watch out!" as they were coming in for their crash landing into the crowded colony. It was a very noisy place! Another trail then led us down to a rocky shore and there we saw harlequin ducks and a semipalmated plover and several seals. There were the shell remains of hundreds of lobsters that had been eaten by something. After climbing back up the cliff from the shore our path led us through pretty open fields of mixed flowers and shrubs with views
Perce Rock
Here's the other side of the big rock that I posted photos of yesterday. of the gulf and town of Perce. Near the island harbor we had a late lunch of shrimp baguettes at the little cafe there. The weather was perfect for this outing, except that while we were waiting for the boat, the winds picked up and on the ride back to Perce the swells were running six to seven feet and breaking all around us. As we went into each trough we could see the top of the wave behind us several feet above the transom. That boat was really rocking! Luckily, it was a short ride and nobody got sick. The crew was a little concerned and asked each passenger if he was ok. We were both more than ok, we were having fun!
Joe added another life bird today, the great cormorant. Joe says to tell you all that after watching TV at night for the past week he's convinced that hockey is a big deal up here. (Ha, ha) That last nonplussed laugh is mine, not his.
A short video I took today for our birder friends:
Teri
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Like having a little vacation with you- new adventure on each post!
Michael and Peter and I are enjoying your trip around eastern Canada. It really is like being there with you just a bit, and I like the inclusion of the snippets of film now! Very curious to see where you will go next and your photographs are lovely!