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The Parks / Newfoundland & Labrador / Cape St Mary's Ecological Reserve

These almost vertical cliffs that run along the Avalon Peninsula’s rugged coastline and its four major bays: Trinity, Conception, St. Mary’s and Placentia rise to 130 metres above sea level. Placentia Bay, ringed by coves and harbours, runs from Cape St. Mary at its entrance, 125 kilometres to its head at the Isthmus of Avalon. The uncompromising terrain and maverick sea meet where huge breakers crash against imposing cliffs and rough pebbled beaches hurling the harsh salt spray inland where it produces bogs in the grassy barrens beyond. The eroded remains of the Appalachian Mountains create the sea cliffs and deep ravines while inland glaciers have folded and scraped smooth the Precambrian and Cambrian bedrock of the high barren plateau. Bird Rock, a sea stack standing directly adjacent to the main body of the headland just offshore, rises 100 metres from the sea. Millions of years of erosion have worn away the softer limestone that once connected the rock pinnacle to the cliff, creating a natural refuge from the land-based predators of seabird eggs and chicks and making Bird Rock the second largest gannetry in North America.