All photos © Robin and Arlene Karpan

Witless Bay, Newfoundland hosts one of Canada’s, and indeed the world’s, great natural wildlife spectacles. In summer, the four islands in the ecological reserve host over four million seabirds. The highlight is undoubtedly the chance to see North America’s largest nesting colony of Atlantic puffins, with over a half million of these delightful birds with flamboyant bills, sometimes nicknamed “sea parrots” or “clowns of the seas”. The best part? Witless Bay is incredibly easy to visit.

Off to Bay Bulls

The jumping-off point to visit Witless Bay is the tiny community of Bay Bulls, less than an hour’s drive south of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital and largest city. The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve controls access to the islands so you must visit on a guided boat excursion. We went out with O’Brien’s Boat Tours  which has been operating here for 40 years.

Photo possibilities started shortly after we left the dock, even before we got to the birds. We cruised by incredibly rugged coastline with craggy rocks, pounding waves, sea caves, and waterfalls. The colours in the rocks seemed almost unreal. On the northern shore the 11-metre Bay Bulls Lighthouse with its cast-iron tower dating to 1908 stands high atop the cliff.

Birds, birds, and more birds

After we rounded the point and approached Gull Island, the main island in the ecological reserve, it looked as if it was speckled with tiny dots. As we got closer those dots turned into countless birds, in places almost carpeting the cliff face. Thousands more filled the air, like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie, only friendlier.

The boat moved slowly along the cliffs and we could see puffins everywhere – on the water, in the air, standing on the cliffs, and hanging around the rocky grassy areas near the burrows where they nest. Puffins are great swimmers, using their big webbed feet to dive for fish. They are fast fliers, flapping their wings up to 400 times per minute. But taking off from the water, they look rather awkward with a lot of flapping and splashing before they get airborne.

While puffins steal the show, they are only part of the bird extravaganza. The bay is home to the second-largest colony of Leach’s storm petrels in the world with an estimated 620,000 pairs. Common murres, many sporting what looks like white-rimmed glasses, number in the hundreds of thousands. Among them are some less common thick-billed murres, amazingly deep divers, often plunging to depths of over 100 metres.

Some of the other birds rounding out the line-up include black-legged kittiwakes, razorbills, black guillemots, and gulls, among others. Witless Bay attracts so many birds because it offers safe nesting grounds on protected islands, and an abundance of capelin, the small fish that spawn nearby in the summer, providing the main food source for many seabirds.

The Photographic Experience

People are not allowed on the protected islands, so you will have to photograph from the boat. This experience may vary according to sea conditions. We went on the tour twice. The first time the seas were quite rough so the tour boat couldn’t get too close to the cliffs. Even when going slow, the boat was bobbing up and down enough that it was necessary to brace against the rail or some other part of the boat when photographing. Still, we saw and photographed a lot.

Much calmer seas on our second trip allowed the boat to approach the cliffs so closely that it seemed like we could reach out and touch the nesting birds. We moved slowly and even stopped in a few spots where there were a lot of birds, providing ideal photo possibilities.

We recommend taking the longest telephoto lens you have that you can comfortably shoot hand-held (using a tripod isn’t practical). A zoom lens is ideal so that you can quickly change from frame-filing close-ups to wider views to show the environment. Most of our images were shot with a 180-600mm zoom.

Since we are shooting moving birds from a moving boat, it is important to have a fast enough shutter speed to get sharp images. Most often we left the aperture wide open to allow for a faster shutter speed. The best ISO settings will depend on light conditions and how much the boat is moving. We had reasonably bright overcast conditions so I opted for an ISO setting of 1000 and sometimes 1250. This allowed for shutter speeds of around 1/2000 -1/4000 seconds. While this is plenty fast under most circumstances, adding the boat movement to the mix calls for erring on the side of faster than normal.

It’s a magical place offering photo possibilities that come fast and furious, so be sure that your camera battery is fully charged and there’s lots of room on the memory card before heading out. Also be sure to secure your camera around your neck or wrist in case you drop it or it flies out of your hands in choppy conditions.

More than just birds

As a bonus, Witless Bay is also a top place to find humpback whales. We saw them on both our boat trips. One time, we were torn between watching a couple of humpbacks nearby or the bird pageant on the cliffs. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.

The boat cruise has an onboard guide who provides a running commentary on the birdlife, whales, and scenery. But this being Newfoundland, it’s not surprising that a bit of Newfoundland culture is thrown in as well. It turns out that our guide Frank not only knows the natural surroundings but is a singer who entertained with traditional songs on the way to and from Witless Bay.

If you’re up to it, you can even get “screeched-in” on board. In this long-standing ritual, visitors can become honourary Newfoundlanders by repeating some local saying, kissing a codfish, and then knocking back a shot of screech rum. Here they have a slight variation. Instead of kissing a codfish, you kiss a puffin. Not a real puffin, mind you, but a toy one.

How to visit Witless Bay

The simplest is to drive to Bay Bulls if you have a car. But be sure to book your tour first. If you don’t have a car, or just don’t feel like driving, O’Brien’s runs a shuttle service to Bay Bulls from major hotels in the St. John’s area. Yet another option is to include Witless Bay on a larger tour of the southern Avalon Peninsula. This driving route along what is known as the Irish Loop highlights nature, wildlife, culture, history, and non-stop scenery. We visited as part of a nature and wildlife tour around the Avalon Peninsula with Bird the Rock, guided by bird expert Jared Clarke.

Further resources

• See our article on another prime Newfoundland bird hotspot Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve
• While in St. Johns, be sure to check out the famous Jellybean Row Houses in St. John’s
• Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism has a wealth of information on other birding sites and places to explore in the province.
• Destination St. John’s for information about the capital city.
• For more on puffin photography see our article on How to Photograph Puffins on Machias Seal Island

SUBSCRIBE to Photojourneys below

Feel free to PIN this article on a Wildlife Photography Adventure in Witless Bay, Newfoundland