Power to the puffins of Eastern Egg Rock
Photo / Jim Neuger
National Audubon Society's Puffin Project is focused on three Maine islands, including Eastern Egg Rock.
Watching “Titanic” the night before may not have been the best idea, but it took only a minute to get sucked right back into the story until its bittersweet end three hours later.
The next day at New Harbor on Maine's mid-coast, my other half and I boarded a Hardy Boat Cruise for a 90-minute puffin-watching excursion run in cooperation with the National Audubon Society's Project Puffin, which has a visitor center in Rockland. Project Puffin was launched in 1973 to restore puffins and other seabirds to historic nesting spots in the Gulf of Maine.
The destination? Eastern Egg Rock Island, a seven-acre treeless tract of land located in outer Muscongus Bay. Designated the Allan D. Cruickshank Wildlife Sanctuary, it's home to the world's first restored seabird colony. The only humans there are the few researchers camping out for weeks at a time.
As the boat engines cranked up and the winds began to blow, passengers found their seats (adventurers in front and on the upper deck, amateurs below under cover), rented binoculars (we had our own) and grabbed complimentary ginger candies and seasickness bags (fortunately, none appeared to be needed).
Soon after departure, our Audubon guide began the lesson with an introduction to island nesters, from puffins to terns to gulls to cormorants, as a crew member did a show-and-tell with diagrams. We learned that terns are angular, wispy fliers, while Atlantic puffins — orange-beaked and -footed cuties — return to coastal areas to breed and nest in cliff-top colonies.
Sadly by the late 1800s, hunters had killed off all the puffins in the area. Project Puffin aimed to bring them back to Eastern Egg Rock by transplanting young chicks from Newfoundland reared in artificial sod burrows, in hopes that they would return after two to three years at sea to breed. It worked, and now more than 1,000 puffin pairs nest on three Maine islands, including Eastern Egg Rock.
As the boat neared the island, sightings started from all sides called out by our Audubon guide like horse-racing announcer Larry Collmus at Belmont Park: Puffin flying in at 10 o'clock! 12 o'clock, now 1 o'clock, heading towards the islands! Puffin at 3 o'clock on the water, diving down for food, watch to see where he emerges! Quick! At 9 o'clock heading for the island!
It was amazing how quickly these funny-faced avians that resembled flying penguins zipped through the air. Though we didn't see huge colonies on the rocks as one would in a David Attenborough nature documentary, this was a rare opportunity to view these amazing creatures up close. Getting the perfect picture paled by comparison, even for social-media bragging rights.
On the way back, we learned more from our guide, a real ham in mimicking the cow-like sound puffins make in their underground burrows and quips about having a “swell” time on the waves. Though I refrained from buying puffin keychains, socks or other merchandise for sale, I contributed a small sum to the Project Puffin collection jar to support a worthy and noble cause.
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