The B
Dunes
rilliant white sea swallows, with their black caps and orange bills, dive for stickleback fish, tossing them into
the air, and setting them up to swallow whole—head first. It is the month of August and it is prime time for seeing shorebirds. We drift in our kayaks along the shore of Tern Island, entertained by the 6,000 hungry birds. A few paddle strokes fills the sky with a white cloud of flapping wings as they rise up in sheets. The birds’ agility in flight and precision when diving for food provides us with a continuous aerial specta- cle. The sound of their cawing voices floods our ears. This flock is only a fraction of the 30,000 that make the banana-shaped barrier island at Kouchibouguac National Park, New Brunswick their home.
T
ern Island has the largest common tern colony in eastern Canada and the second largest along the North American
eastern seaboard. Results of an annual count suggest there are approximately 6600 tern nests in the Atlantic Canadian park. The common tern numbers have been declining in the Atlantic provinces since the middle of the century, primarily due to the
K
tremendous increase in gull populations. The gulls compete with the terns for nesting habitat, usually winning, and prey heavily on tern chicks. But here on Kouchibouguac’s protected strands of islands, the terns are alive and well.
ouchibouguac National Park is located on the north- east shore of New Brunswick in the Northumberland
Strait of the Atlantic Ocean. Kouchibouguac was estab- lished as a reserve in 1969 and was given official nation- al park status in
1979.The 238 square kilometers of the Maritime Lowlands ecological region is 80 kilometres north of Moncton and 50 kilometres southeast of Miramichi.One of the characteristics of these rich fertile lowlands, making up the eastern half of New Brunswick, are rivers with tides that travel inland for many miles.A mix of deciduous leaf forest and boreal coniferous forest
26 FALL2002
surrounds the lowlands and is identified as an Acadian forest. The Maritime Lowlands is also known for its coastal sand dunes and extensive beaches—the main attraction at Kouchibouguac. This family-oriented park contains 35 kilometres of bike trails and 315 sites in their modern campground on the mainland. Off the mainland there are three main barrier islands
and a few tiny islands called Tern Island I and Tern Island II.Tern Island III has eroded down to a sandbar and this is where the terns and grey seals congregate.
of family paddling with common
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52