The highlight today was a boat tour this morning, a 3 hour tour of Bird Island. They guaranteed Puffin sightings, and boy did we see puffins! And gulls, razorbills, kittiwakes, cormorants, eagles, herons, and many many grey seals.
There were about 22 passengers this morning:
A puffin coming in for a barely-controlled landing:
We saw a number of seals:
Cormorants lining up to dry:
Lots of eagles. The mottled ones are the immature birds. They are flying, but it takes 2-3 years to develop the usual bald eagle plumage. The eagles tended to hang back in the caves, because the gulls and kittiwakes would dive-bomb them if they sit out in the open. The smaller birds out on the rocks are razorbills, somewhat similar to puffins:
The official count of eagles we saw was 50, mostly mature birds with a few juveniles thrown in. They came out here a bit early this year, hunting gull chicks mostly. They also make the little puffins and the like very nervous, and will likely push them out to sea a week or two before they usually go in mid August.
In the afternoon we had a quick tour of Baddeck, finding a yarn supply shop of all things in this little busy touristy town. When we got there two men were already sacked out in the comfy lawn chairs provided for waiting men, and now there were 3. One of the fellows was from Markdale, so he even knew where Flesherton is (just 10 km up the road)!
Back at camp it was uncomfortable sitting outside, due to a number of Black Flies pestering us. Inside, our little electric fan made it comfortable, and we had a good night's sleep in spite of the warmth.
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