Nova Scotia – OdoNotations

Nova Scotia in June

Back in March my partner and I bought a trailer in Nova Scotia. We don’t have any property yet so it is currently parked next to a relative’s house. This will give us a place to stay when we go back instead of spending money on an Airbnb – though we have stayed in some nice ones over the years! This also means I could buy a second dragonfly net and leave it there for those occasions when we fly instead of drive.

We took a vacation during the first week of June so I could see it for the first time. It’s amazing – 40 feet long, with an actual bedroom, living area, kitchen area, and dining area and even an electric fireplace! Although it is 12 years old, it has been immaculately maintained with new furniture and a new furnace. We spent the first two days furnishing it and getting to know how it works – the weather was lousy (cold, overcast and blustery) so I wasn’t interested in spending much time outdoors anyway.

Road Trip: Odes in Nova Scotia

We left P.E.I. via ferry, crossing from Wood Islands to Caribou after dinner. It was dark by the time we arrived at Seabank House in Pictou, a beautiful Victorian bed-and-breakfast overlooking the harbour that looked like something out of a Stephen King movie. In reality this 1854 building was quite charming inside, featuring spacious rooms, stained glass windows, and a grand staircase. This was our favourite accommodation of the trip (not including the AirBnB we stayed at in the Annapolis Valley). We stayed in the Hummingbird Suite with its two canopy beds, and enjoyed a breakfast of Eggs Benedict and fruit and yogurt the following morning. I was hoping to go for a walk along the harbour and look for sea and water birds for my county list before we left, but it was quite foggy outside and I couldn’t see much so I skipped it.

Trout Lake, NS: Interlude

After leaving Yarmouth we drove to our next stop on the tour, a cottage on Trout Lake south of Middleton in Annapolis County. The lake was nice, but quiet: there was a small sandy beach with several rocks protruding from the water at either edge of the property. A little bit of emergent vegetation made for some great perches for skimmers and damselflies, but I didn’t see either during our short stay. The weather was cool and cloudy for most of our time there, which, combined with the early season – there were no Slaty Skimmers or Calico Pennants flying yet – likely had a lot to do with a lack of odes at the water.

Both of the days we were there dawned with the sky completely covered in cloud. It was cold our first morning there, so cold that I didn’t even want to go for a walk along the gravel road. Instead we went into Greenwood to get breakfast, pick up some groceries, and check out a few rocky creeks and waterfalls that we had visited on past trips. The thick blanket of clouds covering the sky showed signs of breaking up by the time we finished our errands, so we headed to a small trail on Rock Notch Road that looked over Fales River and a medium-sized waterfall that once powered a water mill from 1857 to 2002.

Yarmouth NS: The Yarmouth County Rail Trail

On our final day in Yarmouth I was ready for a change of scenery. It was a bright, sunny day, but once again the wind made it feel much cooler so I gave up on the idea of driving down Cape Forchu to the lighthouse. I knew it was my last chance to see the ocean and find some ocean birds before leaving for the Valley, but I also knew the wind blowing off the ocean would be cold, and I didn’t have any winter gear with me. I consulted Google, and found a few spots that looked interesting – the Yarmouth County Rail Trail near Arcadia, a tiny community just down the road from the Y-Con Comics convention, and Tusket Falls, which is a little further away and has an interesting walking trail close by. I liked the idea of visiting Tusket Falls for river-loving dragonflies, while the Yarmouth Rail Trail passed by the Chebogue river, which might be good for looking for odes in the vegetation nearby. The Yarmouth Rail Trail actually becomes the Tusket Falls Walking Trail a little further east, too long of a hike from where I planned to access it in Arcadia, but easy enough to drive to once I’d seen enough of the Chebogue River.

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Chebogue Meadows

On my second day in Yarmouth I headed out to the Chebogue Meadows Wilderness Trail not far from the Hebron Recreation Complex. I had wanted to drive down to the Cape Forchu lighthouse to look for seabirds, but the chilly north wind was uncomfortable and I figured it would only be worse by the ocean so I decided to head inland instead. Chebogue Meadows sounded like a great spot to look for birds and bugs; it was an eBird hotspot, with a whopping 33 species listed before my visit, including many northern-type warblers and thrushes. Interesting to me was the river at the back of the loop visible on Google maps, but what made it especially appealing was an online description of a trail that takes you through 12 distinct habitats via footpaths and boardwalks including softwood forest, a black spruce swamp, a meadow, a hardwood upland, and wetlands.

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Hebron Recreational Complex

My fiancé Doran and I spent two weeks in the Maritimes in late May/early June: first we spent some time in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where Doran (a comic book creator) had a booth for all three days of the Y-Con Gaming & Comics Convention, followed by three days in the Annapolis Valley to visit family, and finishing with a few days in Moncton, New Brunswick where Doran had a booth at East Coast Comic Expo for a day and a half. These are places I never would have planned to visit for birds and dragonflies on my own, so it was a great opportunity to explore some places completely off my radar! I prepared for the trip the same way any contemporary naturalist would prepare: I investigated iNaturalist, explored eBird, and goggled over Google maps looking for places that had an intriguing variety of birds, odonates, and habitats in order to come up with a short list of places to visit around each of our AirBnBs. I wanted to see (or hear) and document as many species as possible with three main goals in mind: (1) to find some East Coast lifers whose range is limited to the Maritimes (White Corporal and Mantled Baskettail being at the top of my list); (2) to find some species that live in the Ottawa-Gatineau region but are difficult to find, mainly due to the inaccessibility of habitat (such as emeralds in bogs or clubtails and snaketails in rushing creeks); and (3) add as many ode records as possible to Nova Scotia and Moncton in order to increase the general knowledge of the species that live there.

Nova Scotia 2023: Odes of Marsh and Pond

The weather played a big part in our trip this year. Rainclouds blew in and blew out all week long, bringing rain on most of the days we were there. Fortunately the sun came out long enough to get in a few hikes at the various waterfalls and for me to take some long walks while Doran was out with the car. I spent quite a few hours looking for odonates and other critters around the ponds and the Annapolis Rail Trail, mostly in the afternoons when the sky cleared up. Although they are maybe half as long as the Eagleson storm water ponds by my house and much less diverse in terms of wildlife species, I still managed to find an interesting variety of creatures.

The afternoon after our waterfall search was particularly productive. I found my first Band-winged Meadowhawk and Familiar Bluet of the trip, which are also my first observations in iNaturalist for Nova Scotia for these species.

Nova Scotia 2023: Rural Roads and Waterfalls

The morning of July 18th was warm and cloudless, so we resumed our search for rushing creeks, waterfalls, and odes. I had noticed one spot on Google maps that wasn’t too far from us – Slokum Brook Falls, just north of the Trans-Canada Highway. Photos showed a nice little brook with a steep waterfall in the middle of the woods, and reviews on Alltrails.com indicated that it was a bit difficult to find, as it is very overgrown at the beginning. It is said to be the highest falls on the North Mountain that drains into the valley, though there is really only water here during the spring runoff. We drove down Lily Lake Road, slowing down once we got past the lake itself. I peered into the dense foliage along the road, and found only two spots that looked like trails entering the woods, though both had “private property” signs at the entrance. Once the forest opened up we realized we must have gone past it, and decided to turn around at the end of the road, which elbowed north onto Douglas Road as the woods gave way to farm fields.

Nova Scotia 2023: Dragon-hunting around Middleton

Doran and I visited Nova Scotia again in mid-July, now one of my favourite times to visit after seeing so many dragonfly species on our last trip. This time we rented an Airbnb in Middleton – the basement suite of a house right on the Annapolis River. Although the vegetation along the river was much too thick to get close to the water, there were a few well-trampled trails leading down to the water’s edge. In addition, our location was close to both Bridge Street (Highway 10), with Riverside Park on the opposite bank, and the South Shore Annapolis Trail which has its own bridge across the water and runs behind Riverside Park and the Middleton sewage lagoons. We got settled into the apartment, and the following day that Doran and I went exploring. My fiancé had recently become interested in searching out local waterfalls, and as a number of clubtail species can be found on fast-flowing rocky rivers, I was more than keen to accompany him.

Familiar Odes in Nova Scotia

In early July my fiancé and I spent some time in Nova Scotia, spending a night in Cape Breton before heading to the Annapolis Valley where he grew up. We decided to drive down to save on costs, spending the first night in Woodstock, NB as we did in 2008 and our second night in Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. There we stayed at the Silver Dart Lodge right above Bras d’Or Lake near the start of the Cabot Trail. The property was lovely, with single rooms in the main lodge and small chalets available for rent (we stayed in the main lodge). Situated on 90 acres, the property boasts a pool, a playground, a gazebo overlooking the small, rocky beach, and best of all, hiking trails in the woods.

We arrived in the early afternoon. Doran wanted to rest after the long drive from Woodstock, but I felt compelled to explore the property. I could hear the lovely song of a Northern Parula coming from the trees behind the lodge so I decided to start my exploration with a walk along the hiking trails. There was a charming wooden frame at the entrance of the trail; I spotted movement just above it and was surprised to see a very young robin perching on top of the frame.