September 2023: Fundy Tides, Sandpipers, Trolls, Diamondback Terrapins
Sunday September 3 We set off on a driving trip to Nova Scotia to see my friends Pete and Trish, who I've known since my days in graduate school in Cambridge; Pete was one of my weekly squash partners there. On the way home we plan to stop at Acadia National Park and Boothbay Harbor in Maine. Monday September 4 At one of the highway rest stops in Nova Scotia, near the tip of the Bay of Fundy, we spotted this sign. The huge tides in the Bay of Fundy produce extensive mud flats in the Minas Basin, the southern fork at the tip of the Bay, providing migrating shorebirds, especially sandpipers, an ideal stopover to fatten up on invertebrates before continuing their journey. One to two million shorebirds stop over on their way south in July and August. And although we're now at the tail end of shorebird migration season, I'm hoping to see some on this trip. At Truro, we stopped to see the tidal bore, a wave of water that rushes upstream in narrows as high tide begins to com...