Take a Trip, Find a Puffin

Summer in Pittsburgh is pretty fine, but it’s good to explore farther afield now and again. That’s how I came to find myself on a bobbing boat beyond the breakwater of New Harbor, Maine. We were cruising out to look for Atlantic Puffins on Eastern Egg Rock, a five-mile trip on what were calm seas. I quickly discovered that as much as I am a bird person, I am not a boat person.

The boat was motoring along as Dr. Stephen Kress, founder of Project Puffin, described the work of scientists who dedicated their efforts to repopulate the seabird on maritime outcrops. Though I was getting greener by the minute, I was in awe of Kress, who any birder worth his salt knows as a master ornithologist, the foremost expert on these comical and endearing birds. He explained that puffins had been hunted to near extinction along the Maine coast, virtually extirpated for meat and feathers by the turn of the 20th century, though they exist in significant numbers across the sweep of the North Atlantic to Europe. When Kress got the idea in 1973 to try to reestablish the species in the U.S. by hand-raising a few babies, known as pufflings, he had found his life’s work.

Kress and his crew patiently fed these pioneers, who eventually returned as adults to their excavated natal tunnels, pairing up and brooding a single egg each year. The enterprising ornithologists placed wooden decoys and set up mirrors so that the social birds thought that they were joining an existing colony. Numbers slowly increased and, by 2019, a record 188 breeding pairs were established, delighting visitors.

As Kress continued to share the project’s successes, I tried to get my binoculars on passing pelagic species. This, of course, only led to further seasickness. I was lurching up and down, the birds were moving, I was squinting at the glinting water, and I wasn’t sure if I’d make it back to solid ground.

Finally, Eastern Egg Rock appeared. We drew close and began to slowly circle the island. It was then that the puffins showed themselves. Little black and white cannon balls, the birds were hauling in fish for their young, big orange beaks jammed to capacity with their catches. The birds would whirl in across the water, little wings gyrating like pinwheels, with faces that were part bird, part harlequin. About the size of a quart water bottle and weighing in at 500 grams, puffins can fly up to 55 miles per hour and beat their wings 400 times a minute. We cheered their antics, rejoicing in the return of the birds. Silently, I was thrilled that I hadn’t had to make a run to the rail.

For those heading to New England, try www.hardyboat.com. Closer to home, though there are no puffins, a day trip to the National Aviary avoids seasickness and contributes far less to climate change. Plan your landlubbing Pittsburgh adventure at www.aviary.org.

Email your avian encounters, photos, or questions to PQonthewing@gmail.com.