At the Cape

A recent visit to the New London Lighthouse gave my husband and me the opportunity to visit Cape Tryon as well. We knew of the Cape, at the edge of a farmer’s property, accessed via a red dirt road through his fields. The area is open to the public however.

At the end of a rough road, the sandstone cliffs are up to 35 meters above sea level. 

Such high cliffs are unusual on Prince Edward Island. The Gulf of St. Lawrence lies below. In the distance, the traditional beaches of the island are visible.

There isn’t beach here. The sandstone rises out of the water though it has eroded into caves in several areas at sea level.

Over the rocks below and any ledges in the cliffs, cormorants are in residence.

I have been fascinated with cormorants since we moved to the island. They fly over our house spring to fall as they travel back and forth to the lighthouse in the Summerside Harbour. Their goose-like V formations are a regular sight.

We observed the birds, noting the white feces over the rocks. Here, it is subjected to the elements, thus does not become the famous guano, which is a much sought fertilizer. 

The nests are made of stick and twigs, coated white as well.

This is the oldest cormorant colony on the island dating back to at least 1941. Two species of cormorants, Double crested and Great, live here. We saw Great cormorants at a distance. 

They have white around their beaks. Both species have a prehistoric look, with the long hooked beak and the S-shaped neck. 

Cormorants aren’t songbirds. Sometimes they sound like pigs. You can hear the voices and calls here.  Their grunt-like sounds were common on this visit.

A close-up look at one of the Double crested birds shows their uniqueness. 

The deep blue eye and the orange around the beak adds colour to the matte black. The feather pattern shows a combination of small and larger feathers and long ones of the tail. 

These birds are made to swim fast and far underwater in pursuit of food. They always surface a distance from the diving spot. Cormorants can cover a large area in a matter of seconds.

The lighthouse at Cape Tryon is not the original one which housed the keepers and their families in the early days. This one lights the way for vessels but watches over the colony as well.

A close-up of the Great cormorants is my next goal. We will be back!

The cormorant tree

We hear the swoosh of wing and air as they fly over the house in v formation on their way to and from the harbour. We see them in the distance, sat on the breakwater and the lighthouse, as we walk on the boardwalk by the bay in Summerside.

We see them flapping their wings to dry them as they rest along an inlet. 

However, we have never seen them this way.

Double crested cormorants are fishers with webbed feet. Our experiences with them have always been by the sea, so it was unusual to see them in a tree, 

with the webbed feet draped down over the branches.

This spruce tree was by the side of Stewart’s Pond on the Westmoreland River. It is part of a new nature park on the river which is in the Westmoreland Watershed. People and cormorants fish in the pond for rainbow and brook trout. 

My husband and I watched these pre-historic looking birds for a long time as they preened themselves on their lofty perches. 

The yellow-orange at the base off the beak is the only colour on these birds, whose necks and breasts are tinged with white. There is a natural fish hook at the end of the beak.

While we explored the park, the cormorants swooped into the water. We saw them through the trees, disappearing into the water to fish, surfacing a distance away. 

No catch and release for these fishers!