Rushton's Beach Provincial Park

Rushton's Beach Provincial Park

Raven and I took a little road trip yesterday to take advantage of the sunshine and "spring-like" temperatures (6 degrees!) and headed approximately 11 km down the Sunrise trail towards Tatamagouche. It is a little difficult to find, as there are no signs indicating the entrance and the road to access the beach parking lot is about the size of someone's driveway. With a little help from Siri (If you do use Siri, she will tell you it is on the land side of the road, which it is not, it's on the water side), we managed to find it and confirmed we were in the right spot as there were some workers from Nova Scotia Parks and Recreation there cleaning up for the coming beach season. 

You enter Rushton's beach through a large gravel parking lot, it is complete with picnic tables, on-site change rooms and restrooms, as well as a long boardwalk leading you right to the beach! Perfect for anyone that has mobility difficulties, uses mobile aids or a wheel chair (there is even an access ramp to the beach!). 

Following up from my last post, I found a few more shells on Rushton's beach. Above is another soft-shell clam that was about the size of my hand, a lot bigger than the ones we see here in Melville! To the left of it is a Razor clam shell, which can cause quite the injuries if you have ever tried to dig them up! These razor clams are the same type that are found along the coasts in Europe and I found this funny video of some people catching them in the UK!

All of the oyster shells I found on Rushton's beach were all bunched together, like the ones pictured here. Sadly, no pearls.

The beach itself is mostly sand and stretches along for my guess of 2 km each way from the boardwalk entrance. Looking out at the water, you could see more sand and shallow levels of water, likely making an ideal environment for warm water temperatures in the summer months and some great beach days to come!

There are some really cute cottages down the beach on Rushton's, this is the break wall that has been constructed to protect the property that they are on from shoreline erosion.

Finally, on our way out of the park, we saw this little guy. Now you know that I am not great with naming birds, so I appreciate any help! S/He looked to be about the size of a plover and made a noise that sounded very similar to a car alarm going off when s/he took flight. S/He had a very unique beak as well, it was long and pointed, almost ideal for pulling up worms or insects from holes in the ground! Comment below if you know what kind of bird this is!