Named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987, Gros Morne National Park stretches along the northwest coast of Newfoundland. Among its varied habitats are rocky beaches, sandy coves, tiaga flatlands, vast peat bogs, boreal forest and alpine tundra. Our hikes today took us through most of these ecosystems though we didn't have the time, energy or equipment for a trek to the higher terrain.
A morning walk along the shore turned up great black-backed gulls, common terns and a variety of shorebirds, including a lone whimbrel. We followed this amble with a 2 mile hike to the edge of West Brook Pond which sits at the mouth of a scenic, glacier-carved canyon in the granite massif of the Long Range; the route crosses a broad wetland, broken by islands of black spruce and balsam fir. Songbirds along this trail included North Woods species such as white-throated sparrows, Wilson's warblers and black and white warblers. A third hike, short but steep, took us to the summit of Berry Hill, an isolated pinnacle that offers a magnificent panorama of the Park's western slope; the highlight of that climb (other than the view) was the presence of a bald eagle, soaring above the flatlands between the mountains and the Gulf.
Since these hikes occurred during the hours of full sunlight, our mammal sightings were limited to the noisy and numerous red squirrels. Hoping to see a moose, which are abundant in the Park, we took a drive along Route 430 at dusk; within 30 minutes, we had seen nine of these large herbivores, including three adult females with their rapidly growing calves. Of the nine, eight appeared along the side of the road and four crossed in front of our car. So far this year, ten auto-moose collisions have occurred in Gros Morne National Park!
