There’s more to the beach than the sandy shore. At Rainbow Haven park in Cow Bay, boardwalks and gravel trails offer an opportunity to explore the coastal ecosystem beyond the sand and surf.
Coastal erosion is a worldwide problem. Over time, tidal action and storms can eat into the beach, wear down rocks and eventually draw the sand out to sea. This is less a problem at Rainbow Haven than at nearby Silver Sands beach.
Increasing human activity during the summer months has made this popular beach less friendly to birds like piping plovers and sandpipers that nested in the dune grasses in years past. Year round, walkers often ignore signs to leash dogs, which also contributes to the problem.
Just beyond the beach lie rolling fields of tall grass growing in the sand dunes. Foxes make their homes in the small hills. They survive by hunting small mammals and birds in the local area. I’ve often seen hare and seagull carcasses in the dunes surrounding their holes. Sparrows make their nests in the bushy areas surrounding the spruce trees.
Purple asters can be found at this time of year, growing among the grasses. Strawberries thrive in some sandier spots in the early summer.
Many of the spruce trees gave up the ghost in recent years, likely due to trauma experienced during Hurricane Juan’s visit in 2003. Their grey skeletons remain erect on the landscape.
The top branches of some of the surviving spruce trees are heavily laden with cones this year. White spruce are especially tolerant of salt spray and are not uncommon in coastal areas.
Farther beyond the grassed area, across the road that leads into the park, a body of salt water is frequently visited by ducks, gulls and herons. Cormorants can usually be found congregating on a dock in a spot visited by seals last winter. Canada geese will sometimes stop here during migration. Rising and falling with the tides, this water is connected to the salt marsh where many of the shore birds now make their home.
Autumn’s quieter days are a good time to explore the ecosystem beyond the shore. Just be sure to stay on the trails.
Flandrum Hill 
Beautiful area…the ocean sky. We have so much erosion down here on the New York coasts also because of population and building.
Robin, New York must have been such a naturally beautiful area when it was first seen by Europeans centuries ago. There’s only so much that can be done to prevent natural erosion, but the type caused by humans is such a waste.
Restful….ahhh! And you had sunshine..:}
Yes we did Cindy. The days have been a blend of sun and rain lately. Those photos were all taken within an hour, and look at the difference in the skies from the first to last image.
The colors in your landscape are like the colors in mine, soft in the mist. The same but different–like looking at home in an ever-so-slightly-alternative universe! You may keep the cormorants, though.
Ok Gerry, what’s up with the cormorants? Are they a bother? I see them regularly but haven’t had any encounters with them. They’re also known as shags out here.
Your wonderful postings and pictures are helping ease my anxiety over my big move. I’m going to look to see where Rainbow Haven Park is. Always enjoy and learn something from your posts. Best, Sybil
Thanks Sybil. I’ve added a map of the local area showing Rainbow Haven Provincial Park at
https://flandrumhill.wordpress.com/map/
We’re located east of Halifax Harbour.
Wow that map is great. I’m really not going to be far from the park. Do you know if the access gates are closed in winter ?
Sybil,there are 2 gates. The inner one is closed in winter. The outer one is open during the day, but it isn’t plowed after heavy snowfalls.
thank you for continuing to bring to me the faraway magic of Cow Bay. I love that name so much! Cormorants–sometimes called fish hawks–seem to push out some of the less aggressive species. We have only had them for a few years here on Grand Traverse Bay.
You’re welcome Pamela 🙂 Even though there isn’t a single cow in Cow Bay, it is a pretty cool name. There’s also a Cow Bay in north eastern Australia.
I didn’t know that about cormorants. I don’t know if their numbers are growing out here but I’ve been noticing them more in recent years too.
Coromorants have been a problem at some locations in Ontario. They have decimated a couple of islands off Presqu’ile Provincial Park on Lake Ontario. The trees on High Bluff island are bare and dead from the nesting Coromorants and I gather they’ve driven off the native birds. Gull Island is bare except for one lone willow tree. There has been a program at the park to reduce their numbers (they cull deer there too) … Sybil
Here’s info about the cull:
Click to access pres_DCCO_ammendment.pdf
Here’s an opposing view from Zoo Check on the cull
http://www.zoocheck.com/cormorant/
From an Ontario Parks document:
On Gull Island: Gull Island is essentially bare, with only a single large willow (Salix sp.) surviving on
Sebastopol Point on Gull Island. The island formerly supported willows, red ash, and
some American elm (Ulmus americana), all of which died and fell by approximately 2000
after 8 years of cormorant nesting. When trees were present they were used by blackcrowned
night-herons. In its unvegetated state the island remains an important nesting
site for ground-nesting colonial waterbirds, especially gulls and terns. Black-crowned
night-herons also typically nest in the remaining willow tree on Sebastopol Point,
although in 2007 they were displaced by cormorants and did not return in 2008.
Thanks for the information and links Sybil. It’s certainly an interesting and complicated debate. If cormorants aren’t an introduced non-native species, I’d probably side with the folks who are against the measures taken to shrink their numbers. Ecosystems go through cycles and what may at first appear to be a ravaged environment, may actually be just a stage of forest succession.
Oh, the back side of the beach! Just as fascinating as the front side. I’ve been loving the asters lately; such survivors. Even after the frost, they hang on with such beauty during these fall days. (P.S. glad you’re getting to spend some time outdoors down at the beach even with those 10 hour preschool days!)
Kathy,the asters are still very much in bloom here too. They look more purple now than they did last month.
The outdoor courtyard at the preschool is surrounded by woods. I’ve often seen little girls trying to squeeze their little hands through the fence wire in order to pick the asters growing on the other side.
What a wonderful memento – I love finding feathers in the fall. Our neatest one was a hawk feather that came drifting down slowly through heavy woods – and landed in a slow moving creek. It was amazing that the feather could make it down through all the trees.
JoAnn, after making it through all those layers of branches, it seems like that hawk feather was intended just for you 🙂