We had a 60 mile drive yesterday from outside the National Park to Perce. It was all along the coast. We had another sunny day with lots of great views.
Perce is a tourist town now. Cod fishing and processed cod so it was dried and salted used to be the main industry. The area now has a provincial park here. I took a picture from our campground to the town and Gaspe Rock. Today we see a film about the park and a boat ride around the rock and a trip to Bonaventure Island. There we are to take a 1.5 mile hike that goes up continuously to the top of the cliffs. Gannets nest there. They should be feeding their young. We will be in their midst, if I make it to the top. (The walk on Sunday really made my knee hurt). Tonight we have our first lobster dinner. We ordered them from a lobster pound ($7/pd cooked).
Our group is going to get together to eat them in the park pavilion.
July 9, 2013
The boat ride took us to both sides of Perce Rock and around Bonaventure Island. After we landed we took a 1.5 mile hike, mostly uphill, to the side of the side of the island where the Gannet's nest. About 1/3 of the gannets nest on the cliffs and the other 2/3 nest on top of the cliff. Only a rope separated visitors from Gannets.
Bonaventure has a rich marine life. It has the largest nesting group of Northern Gannets in North America (maybe 300,000). Couples mate for life. They have their own nesting areas. Each nesting area is only a short distance from neighbors, but the birds are very protective of their area. We saw a prolonged fight between two adults, probably because one went into the wrong nest.They fold their wings in and dive straight into the water. They go down as far as 100 meters to get fish. Adult birds take turns on the single egg. The chick puts its head down the adults throat to get food. Mates rub each other's necks. When adults return to the nest, they are very aggressive to their mate. If they found the right mate, the mate will allow the aggressiveness. A gannet ready to take flight, points its head to the sky and makes a sound. Then it takes off. We also saw Murres and Herring gulls nesting. Many double breasted comorants were in the area. We also saw our first gray seal (some of them had white faces or faces with spots) and we saw more harbor seals. Sometimes there are harlequin ducks in the area and Atlantic puffins. We did not see them today.
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| Gannet colony on top of cliff & Gannets fighting |
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| View of Gaspe from Bonadventure |
Gannets with chicks
I loved our lobster, Gordon did not. It was so much work to get the meat out.
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