
Once upon a time – Rita Wilson, 2018
I went to Sable Island. A land of magic. It had to do with luck. I was a member of the Read by the Sea committee casting about for a fundraiser; someone thought of Sable Island. That was ten years ago.
I went to Sable Island. A land of magic. It had to do with luck. I was a member of the Read by the Sea committee casting about for a fundraiser; someone thought of Sable Island. That was ten years ago.
To really understand animals, we need to know them as individuals. Bird legs provide a flagpole for coloured bands that can be seen from many metres away and enable researchers to track individual birds.
During autumn, the island’s landscape becomes a tapestry of silvery-white, pale yellow, tan, amber, buffy, sienna, orange, red and purple, with the bright greens of juniper and crowberry woven throughout.
Although the island is not as fouled as many other locations, marine debris is abundant, with some plastic containers originating in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, France, and Russia.
An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team from Canadian Forces Base Shearwater arrived on Sable Island to dispose of a few years worth of beached, and potentially dangerous, Marine Location Markers (MLMs).
So, 9 years later, I’m on a flight returning from Portugal. After hours of looking from my window seat at the vastness of the Atlantic, something shining, small and crescent-shaped, caught my attention.
On a clear night Wayne Broomfield set up his tripod and took a series of photos. Later, when he examined the images, he saw a shape like a spinning top glowing in the sky above the Sable Island Station.
On summer solstice, samples of ocean water containing millions of microbes were collected from >100 sites worldwide in an international study of marine microbes and their key roles in ocean ecosystems.
A collection of photos taken over a three-month period—fresh grass and pea, spring flowers, foals and pups, seals crowding the beach, horses, birds, peculiar things washed ashore, and ever-shifting sand.
Leach’s Storm-petrels were first recorded nesting on Sable Island in July 1994. Their vocalizations are now part of the nighttime soundscape of summer as petrels circle and swoop bat-like in the dark.