Mantled Baskettail – OdoNotations

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.

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.