We've had the chance to see some pretty neat wildlife on this trip. The bird-watching has been very good, with lots of aquatic and shore birds, hummingbirds, but also a surprising number of raptors. We saw peregrine falcons at Hopewell Rocks (including one that was seriously freaking out for some reason), several different types of hawk (my favourite was one that kept tracing along the cliff line right by our campsite at Bay St. Lawrence), and close to a dozen bald eagles.

This bald eagle was being harassed by a red-tailed hawk. It must have been flying a little too close to the red-tailed's nest, cause the hawk was repeatedly swooping down at it, provoking the eagle to perform barrel rolls - its talons readied for defence.

The dragonflies have also been awesome on this trip. At one stop on the Fundy Trail Parkway back in New Brunswick, we just stood in place for a few minutes and watched them zoom around, at times zipping just past our heads.

One of the most incredible experiences of the trip, though, was whale watching in Bay St. Lawrence. We went out with Capt. Dennis Cox, who agreed to take us on his zodiac even though we were the only 2 customers interested in his last tour of the afternoon. We ended up traveling alongside a large pod of pilot whales. In the zodiac, we could get so close to the whales without disturbing them that it almost felt like we were just swimming right with them.

It's still mating season for the whales, which involves rolling around underwater and occasionally flipping up right out of the water. We were lucky enough to witness one such flip, where the whole 5-6m long animal came right up into the air in a huge spray of water.

There are also lots of moose in northern Cape Breton Island, but we didn't have any luck with those guys on this trip.