Nature Along the Way: Birds and Wildlife on Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail

 “The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.”

Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea

Where Land, Sea and Sky Meet

Years after walking Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail (ECT), we have returned to our original travel journals, online blog series, photographs and unpublished bird lists to look again at what we encountered along the way. At the time, we were focused on learning how to carry our gear on our backs, navigate the practical realities of camping every day, adapt to Newfoundland’s unpredictable weather and continue walking through a landscape far more demanding than we had anticipated. En route, we recorded birds, whales, seals, wildflowers and changing habitats whenever circumstances allowed, without yet knowing how important that practice of paying attention would become.

In 2018, we had not yet set out across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail, nor had #Hike4Birds developed into the six-year, almost 18,000-kilometre journey it would eventually become. The East Coast Trail was our preparation and testing ground. In those early days, the question still remained, and we had no idea whether we could walk, camp, photograph, observe nature and write from a trail day after day. Looking back now, we can also see that it began teaching us how long-distance journeys, slow travel, and nature observation might exist together and even complement one another.

Slow travel, after all, changes the scale at which a landscape is experienced. From a road, the Avalon Peninsula can appear as a succession of communities, harbours and scenic overlooks. On foot, however, those places are joined by the habitats between them: exposed headlands shaped by wind, low coastal barrens, spruce and fir forests, wet bogs, meadows, river mouths, boulder beaches, tidal flats and steep cliffs where seabirds nest above the Atlantic, seals move through coves, and whales regularly surface offshore.

This retrospective is not intended as a comprehensive account of the nature of the East Coast Trail. Our 2018 travel journals varied greatly in detail, and difficult terrain, fog, rain and the need to watch our footing often took priority over keeping complete species lists or capturing wonderful photographs of all we spotted. Some encounters were carefully identified; others survive only as birdsong in the forest, wings disappearing into fog or the sound of a whale breathing somewhere beyond our sight. What follows is a return to what we noticed then, viewed with the perspective gained from the many trails and thousands of kilometres that followed.

During our visit, we walked 252.1 kilometres of the East Coast Trail on the Avalon Peninsula. We backpacked from Portugal Cove to Bauline, exploring the Piccos Ridge section, then we thru-hiked from St. John’s south to Cappahayden, and later returned to walk northern paths between Flatrock and Quidi Vidi back into the capital city. We also visited the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve and travelled to Bonavista and Elliston for a wider experience of Newfoundland’s coastal birdlife. By the end of the journey, our list of birds contained 58 species seen or heard. The number matters less than what it now represents: an early record of the curiosity and attentiveness that would eventually travel with us across Canada.

A Difficult Beginning on Piccos Ridge

Our first encounter with the East Coast Trail was anything but gentle. Piccos Ridge Path brought steep climbs, exposed rock, dense fog, cold rain, powerful winds and an unexpected overnight snowfall. We had walked long distances before and had faced difficult days on other routes, yet Newfoundland immediately reminded us that experience gained somewhere else did not guarantee either competence or success here. The land and weather had their own rules, and neither was particularly interested in easing us into the journey.

The conditions demanded so much of our attention that observing nature sometimes became secondary to simply moving safely. Dense spruce and fir surrounded portions of the ridge, Pine Grosbeaks appeared among the trees, Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows called nearby, and a black fox with a white-tipped tail crossed the trail with her cubs. Far below us, a Bald Eagle moved over the Atlantic. Yet these encounters occurred while we were also carrying heavy packs, judging deteriorating weather, navigating in fog and increasingly wondering whether continuing was sensible.

That divided attention taught us something important about observing wildlife on a long-distance trail. Birding from a fixed viewpoint allows time to wait and study details. Backpacking is different. Sometimes there was time to look through binoculars, take photographs or wait for something to reappear. On other occasions, a call, silhouette or brief movement was all conditions allowed. Nature did not arrange itself around our desire to observe it, just as Newfoundland weather did not arrange itself around our hiking plans.  Piccos Ridge taught us that observation would have to fit inside the realities of the moment rather than remain separate from them.

Eventually we retreated from the northern section. At the time, doing so felt disappointing and like a failure, particularly because we had arrived hoping to discover what we were capable of. In retrospect, Piccos Ridge offered something more useful than an uncomplicated success. It reminded us that being attentive to a landscape also meant respecting our own limits. Weather, terrain and our own abilities were not inconveniences to overcome at any cost; they were part of the place through which we were travelling.

Nature Beside the City

After Piccos Ridge, the North Head Trail around Signal Hill helped restore our confidence. It also demonstrated that meaningful contact with nature did not require leaving St. John’s behind. From Cabot Tower, we scanned the Atlantic with our binoculars while gulls and other seabirds moved around the cliffs. Far offshore, the misty spouts of whales repeatedly broke the surface, too distant to identify but close enough to remind us that a large marine world existed beside the provincial capital.

The short route descended through Ross’s Valley, a glacially shaped hanging valley where mosses and lichens brightened exposed rock. Buttercups and other wildflowers occupied sheltered pockets, and low plants that appeared to be bakeapples spread across the ground, though it was too early for their orange fruit. Around the headland, waves moved against the cliffs while fog advanced across the sea. Seabirds disappeared against dark rock and re-emerged over open water.

The transition from the headland to the Battery was an enjoyable walk and challenged the idea that nature existed somewhere beyond the city. One moment we were high above the Atlantic with waves striking the cliffs below us; soon afterwards we were following narrow lanes between homes and looking across a working harbour. Yet the ecological boundary was far less obvious than the human one. Gulls crossed freely between cliffs, rooftops and harbour, whales surfaced offshore, and Atlantic weather passed across rock, streets and houses without distinguishing between urban and wild spaces.

Quidi Vidi offered another version of the same lesson. The lake is known as an important gathering place for gulls during other times of year, but on our own visit the birdlife was comparatively quiet, and we recorded little beyond Mallards. That absence was itself instructive. A place does not cease to be ecologically important because wildlife fails to provide a dramatic performance during one visit. Season, weather, time of day and chance all influence what a visitor happens to see.

Walking South from St John’s – Through a Changing Coastline

When we began walking south of St. John's, the East Coast Trail alternated between forested slopes, exposed ridges, rocky coves and communities facing the ocean. Near Freshwater Pond, a Common Tern fished over the water and a Spotted Sandpiper worked along the rocks. At Small Point, Windy Cove and Peggy’s Leg, gull colonies occupied narrow offshore ledges. Great Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls were among the birds we identified, with a possible Iceland Gull among them.

The nesting ledges seemed precarious from our perspective. Wind swept across the coast, waves struck the rock below, and the available spaces appeared impossibly small. Yet these cliffs were not marginal places for the birds using them. They were breeding habitat, shaped by exposure and relative protection from many land-based predators. Looking down from the trail challenged the easy human assumption that hospitable habitat must resemble the places in which we ourselves would feel secure.

Cape Spear brought land, sea and birdlife together on a larger scale. A Minke Whale surfaced below the headland while Northern Gannets circled above it. Throughout these days, Great Black-backed Gulls would often soar nearby, and at one point we spotted a Bald Eagle who watched from a rock outcrop. Elsewhere along the route, harbour seals floated or fished close to shore. At camp above the Atlantic, one seal remained below us as evening began.

These encounters certainly slowed our progress along the trail, but that increasingly felt like the point. A whale surfacing in a cove or an eagle below a cliff was not an interruption to the day’s hike. It was part of what walking the trail made possible. The coastline was not merely the setting through which we travelled; it was an active place in which wind, tides, birds, and marine mammals were continually moving.

Fog Forest and the Smaller Details

Not every important nature experience came with a panoramic view. Some of the most memorable sections passed through conifer forest where spruce and fir enclosed the path, moss-covered stone, and the ocean could only occasionally be heard. As we traversed these Tuckamore stands – these wind-sculpted trees gave way to hearing white-throated sparrows, while the cries of Herring Gulls and Great Black-backed Gulls carried inland from the cliffs.

Whether inland and away from the coast, traversing a forest stand or enclosed in fog, we got used to only spotting a quick flight of movement, or spotting species that remained too distant or indistinct to identify.  For every Sooty Shearwater we spotted skimming the ocean’s surface, dozens of others were lost amid the mist.

In many ways those uncertain observations deserve to remain uncertain, but also remain as a memorable part of our experiences. Nature writing can easily make an outing seem tidier than it is and create the impression that every sound is recognized and every movement resolved into a species name or confident identification. Our experience was often less certain. Fog reduces birds to shapes, calls or brief movements, and difficult terrain kept our eyes on roots, rocks and the trail.

The ECT also led us to pay more attention to smaller details. Bunchberry flowered beneath the trees, moss transformed rocky ground into something that seemed almost imagined, and enormous banana slugs appeared along wetter sections. Butterflies became unexpectedly abundant near La Manche, and the chorus of frogs around ponds and damp ground marked another change in habitat.

Inversely, at other times, difficult weather would bring smaller things into focus.  Bunchberry appeared beneath the trees, enormous banana slugs crossed wet ground, butterflies became unexpectedly abundant near La Manche and frogs called from ponds and damp areas.  In this regard, the trail’s richness was not limited to the dramatic wildlife visible from the cliffs.  In addition to this, the nature of the trail changed not only from one region to another, but according to weather, light and our own willingness to keep looking.  A forest could provide shelter from wind one day and trap damp fog the next. A bog crossed on boardwalks might be alive with birdsong but remembered equally for mud, mosquitoes and wet boots

A Coast Defined by Seabirds

As we approached Bay Bulls and Witless Bay, seabirds became a defining presence. Atlantic Puffins and Common Murres appeared offshore, sometimes as small dark shapes on the water and sometimes close enough for their movements to be recognized. From the Beaches Path, we could see birds gathering above the islands of the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Puffins seemed to tumble onto the ocean when they landed and emerge awkwardly from dives, their movements endearing precisely because they looked so different from the controlled arrival of a duck on a pond.

The reserve encompasses Gull, Green, Great and Pee Pee islands and the surrounding marine waters. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador identifies it as the site of North America’s largest Atlantic Puffin colony, with more than 260,000 breeding pairs. It also supports hundreds of thousands of Leach’s Storm-Petrels, as well as thousands of Black-legged Kittiwakes and Common Murres. Research by Memorial University and the Canadian Wildlife Service has helped document the birds’ behaviour, populations and ecology.

Seeing the islands from the trail provided scale, but travelling into the reserve by boat changed our understanding of them. As we approached Gull Island, thousands of birds filled the air. Atlantic Puffins occupied burrow entrances and flew over the water, Common Murres crowded rocky ledges, and Northern Fulmars nested on the cliffs. Razorbills, Black Guillemots, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Herring Gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls and Northern Gannets added to the movement around us. A Minke Whale surfaced beside the boat, briefly joining the spectacle.

The experience was overwhelming in a way that a species list cannot reproduce. It was not simply that many kinds of birds were present, but that the entire island seemed animated by their calls, flight and constant movement between land and sea. We could also see a research station and blind used by ornithologists, reminders that these colonies are places of sustained scientific study as well as natural wonder.

The following day, the huge numbers of birds remained visible from land. Puffins floated offshore as we crossed boulder beaches and coastal meadows, while Razorbills appeared farther along the route. In dense fir and spruce, a Ruffed Grouse emerged near the trail, and Northern Waterthrushes carried food to their young. Greater Yellowlegs foraged at the water’s edge. Within a short distance, our attention shifted from open-ocean seabirds to forest nesters and shorebirds using shallow coastal habitat.

Cliffs, Coves, and Tidal Flats

South of Witless Bay, the trail continued moving among ecological communities that changed rapidly within only a few kilometres. Common Loons called over our campsite at La Manche before dawn. Northern Flickers moved through the woods, frogs called around wet areas and a surprising diversity of butterflies occupied sunlit sections. At Brigus South, Greater Yellowlegs fed in the mudflat while ducks rested in the shallows.

Wooded portions of Brigus Head Path brought a different concentration of birds. Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers and White-throated Sparrows moved through new growth and blowdown, soon joined by American Goldfinches. These busy forest edges lacked the drama of a seabird island, but they showed why transitions between habitats matter. Openings, regrowth, mature forest and nearby water each offered different opportunities for feeding and nesting.

At Lance Cove, Black Guillemots paddled and dived while Common Loons fished and gulls soared above the shoreline. Elsewhere, seals played below steep headlands or gathered on rocks within sheltered harbours. One Spotted Sandpiper gave a distraction display near the trail, drawing our attention from a tiny chick crouched only a short distance away. We stopped, looked carefully and moved on, aware that observation can become disturbance if curiosity overrides restraint.

Renews offered one of the clearest examples of a productive tidal landscape. Greater Yellowlegs foraged across the mudflats, a Belted Kingfisher crossed the harbour, Common Terns fished over the bay and an Arctic Tern moved among them. Interpretive information identified the river mouth and harbour as important for migrating shorebirds, including plovers, whimbrels, Ruddy Turnstone and Spotted Sandpiper.

There we also met a resident involved in beached-bird surveys along the Avalon Peninsula. The conversation connected a beautiful harbour to the less visible work of monitoring coastal change and bird mortality. Citizen science is often imagined as an app or formal checklist, but it is also often the repeated local act of walking beaches, recording what is found and contributing knowledge gathered over years.  Visitors see moments and a few species; people who repeatedly observe a place begin to see patterns.

Whales Beside the Trail

Whales were among the East Coast Trail’s most powerful recurring presences. Sometimes we saw nothing more than a distant spout from the coastline.- such as at Signal Hill.  At other times near Cape Spear, a Minke Whale surfaced beneath circling gannets and gulls. While around Ferryland, whales appeared in coves and below high viewpoints, bringing us to a halt despite whatever distance remained in the day.

On other sections of the path, fog made these encounters even more mysterious and remarkable. Along Father Troy’s and Sugarloaf paths, we sometimes heard a whale breathe before seeing anything at all. A sudden exhalation rose from somewhere beyond the white wall of mist, causing us to stop and watch an ocean that had almost completely disappeared. Eventually a shape might emerge, or another spout would appear farther along the coast. At other times there was only the sound. Elsewhere, a pod of perhaps a dozen whales became visible when the fog lifted sufficiently for their spouts to stand against the water.

Walking created a very different relationship with these sightings than seeing a whale from a brief roadside stop or a tour boat. We carried them with us from headland to headland, listening again whenever the trail returned to the shore. A whale might appear, vanish and surface much farther along the coast while we continued at a much slower pace.  All of which served to highlight the limits of identification - while we confidently recognized some as Minke and Humpback Whales, many others remained simply whales.

The Northern Paths and Coastal Barrens

When we later returned to the sections of the ECT north of St. John’s, the landscape again took on a different character. Cobbler Path crossed swampy ground and forest before opening onto the coast, while Sugarloaf climbed through hills scattered with glacial erratics. Fog settled across headlands, muffling distance while gull calls and whale blows emerged from coves we could barely see.

In clearer weather, the coastal barrens might appear austere, but walking through them revealed considerably more variation than the name suggested. Dark and reddish rock contrasted with pale lichens and low vegetation in greens, yellows, whites, pinks and purples. Plants grew close to the ground in response to wind and exposure.  The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador describes the broader southeastern Avalon landscape as part of the Maritime Barrens region, characterized by combinations of barrens, bogs, ponds, rivers, thickets and small forests. We experienced those elements not as neatly bounded habitat types but as a shifting mosaic of vegetation and dynamic life. One ridge might be open to the full Atlantic wind, while the next hollow held spruce, moss and standing water.

Not far beyond these coastal barrens, long stretches of Tuckamore and forest stands gave way to Common Ravens, chickadees, warblers and sparrows. 

Beyond the Trail at Bonavista and Elliston

Our trip to Bonavista and Elliston was not part of our continuous East Coast Trail walk, but it belonged to the same journey as we began to explore Newfoundland through its birds and coastline. At the Cape Bonavista lighthouse, Atlantic Puffins nested on a rocky outcrop only a short distance offshore. Whales surfaced beyond them, joining birdlife, history and the working sea within one view.

At Elliston, the puffin viewing site offered us a more intimate encounter with this delightful species. We spent an hour watching birds move between their nesting colony, the cliffs and the Atlantic. Their bright bills and upright posture make puffins easy to romanticize, yet the experience at Witless Bay had already placed them within a much larger ecological story of marine food webs, colonial breeding islands, scientific research and protected habitat.

Grateful for the opportunity to visit this remarkable region, we came to clearly see that while completing a trail mattered, so did allowing enough time and flexibility to explore a region to see what else might become visible and understood.

Fifty Eight Species and an Incomplete Record

At the end of our ECT travel journals, we compiled a list of 58 bird species seen or heard during the trip. At least a list of those species we felt we could confidently say we had seen or heard.  On it species ranged from familiar urban birds and pond ducks to forest songbirds, shorebirds, raptors and open-ocean specialists. The list included Fox and Song Sparrows; Pine Grosbeaks; Boreal and Black-capped Chickadees; Golden-crowned Kinglets; several warblers; Bald Eagles and Ospreys; Common Loons; Greater Yellowlegs and Spotted Sandpipers; Atlantic Puffins, murres, guillemots, Razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars, gannets and a Sooty Shearwater.

The list is useful because it records what we noticed, but it should not be mistaken for a survey of the trail. Some entries came from the backpacking route, others from urban walks, the Witless Bay boat trip or the visit to Bonavista and Elliston. Several days produced detailed observations, while others were dominated by weather, navigation and difficult footing. Entire groups of birds were undoubtedly present without being spotted, heard or recorded.  Our record is therefore best understood as a naturalist’s travel journal: an imperfect account and evidence of sustained curiosity rather than a complete biological inventory. 

That imperfection has become part of what we value about it. Long-distance walking kept us outdoors for hours and led us for hours and days through habitats we might otherwise have visited only briefly. At the same time, there is no denying that the demands of hiking on prevented the kind of focused observation possible during a dedicated bird survey. Some days there was time to investigate every unfamiliar call; on others it took everything for us to simply keep moving safely.

The tension between paying attention and having to move on is, of course, always present on a hike or a pilgrimage. A bird or its song can provide reason to stop while the next campsite and the end of the stage remain kilometres away. Photography can encourage us to explore, but daylight and weather also continue to change and influence around us. Writing gives us a means of sharing what we encounter, although doing so after a difficult day requires energy we do not always possess. Binoculars and cameras helped us notice more, but every piece of equipment also has to be carried over every climb. For all of these reasons, the goal has never been to accumulate the largest possible number of species or complete an authoritative nature survey.  The hope is that nature keeps us in the moment, prompts our curiosity, and expands our understanding of regions.

What the East Coast Trail Taught Us to Notice

We had arrived in Newfoundland partly wondering whether our previous experiences on the Bruce Trail, Spain’s Camino Francés and France’s Via Podiensis / GR 65 had prepared us for something much larger. The East Coast Trail did not give us a simple answer. Piccos Ridge humbled us almost immediately, while the weeks that followed taught us that every landscape demanded its own kind of patience but also offered its own rewards. What we carried forward from the ECT, therefore, was not complete confidence that we could handle anything, but a better understanding of how we were able to hike on and how we wanted to travel.

More importantly, the East Coast Trail became a complete journey in its own right. Newfoundland gave us weather that could transform a trail within hours, forests changed by moss and fog, exposed barrens shaped by Atlantic winds, dynamic tidal flats and cliffs crowded with seabirds. We watched whales from headlands, listened to their breaths through fog, encountered seals in coves and stood amid a seabird colony whose scale was almost impossible to comprehend. We learned that nature could exist within a provincial capital, within a fishing harbour and beyond the boundaries of a protected reserve.

The trail also complicated our idea of what slow travel meant. Walking did not automatically make us attentive, and carrying binoculars did not turn every day into a birding excursion. Paying attention remained a choice, repeatedly made amid fatigue, weather, deadlines and the practical demands of continuing forward. Photography helped focus that attention, writing gave us a way to preserve it, and birds and wildlife offered reasons to stop when the momentum of long-distance hiking encouraged us to keep moving.  More simply put, our time on the East Coast Trail reminded us why we had chosen to travel on foot in the first place.

The journey also changed the direction of our lives. One year later, we returned to Cape Spear to begin our journey across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail.  With that said, make no mistake, in 2018 we certainly had not yet developed the language of #Hike4Birds fully, and we did not know where the experiment would eventually lead. What we did know is that we could walk a trail under full pack weight, photograph it, share it, and keep moving.  In this sense, the East Coast Trail gave us a beginning. 

See you on the trail - with your binoculars.