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It is an exciting place to call home as we experience an influx of thousands during the summers and nice off-season weekends. Then, it is hushed for the remainder of the year—the average experience in many seasonally-dependent tourist destinations. Next, we check out the puffins that are usually intermixed into the flurry of birds.
When Daisy started talking about a family trip to Maine for the long Memorial Day Weekend I had one thing on my mind: puffins! Atlantic Puffins are easier to see, and see well, in Maine than anywhere else in the United States. I spotted two puffins on the way out though they were distant and took off before we got close.
The sight, the sound and the smell, coupled with the sheer spectacle of seeing so many birds at once, makes viewing a big seabird colony an avian experience that can’t be compared with any other. There are plenty of Puffins at Bempton, too, but this isn’t one of the best places to see them.
Tufted Puffins foraging off Protection Island on a boat trip from Port Townsend, WA? If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. Corey is on the road as well and comes by his best bird of the weekend honestly. How do you like six (!) What was your best bird of the weekend?
The hotel owner told us that visiting them in the evening had the best showing of puffins as they returned to the cliffs from the sea. I can hardly begin to describe the surreal experience that unfolded before me. It is truly a magical place, an experience like none other. A great meal but I was eager to get to the bird cliffs.
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was any of the five Atlantic Puffins he saw on Eastern Egg Rock off the coast of Maine. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. Instead, I lucked into the best sighting I’ve ever had of a male Mourning Warbler in the same spot.
In other words, eBird is effectively a complete history of my birding experiences. For me, there was the Limpkin in Loxahatchee NWR in Florida, the Atlantic Puffin at Petit Manan NWR in Maine, the Falcated Duck at Colusa NWR in California. Naturally, a walk through one’s life lists triggers memories.
Even on a previously scheduled rest stop at his home in Oregon, he can’t resist going birding with friends ( Tufted Puffin , a clumsy flyer but an elegant swimmer, #2701). “When all your energy is focused on a single purpose,” he says, “nothing else seems to matter. That feeling can be incredibly seductive.”
This Bald Eagle, photographed by Corey, was after Blue-winged Teal in Florida, not Atlantic Puffins in Maine. To wit: In an experiment informally called the “Cheetos Challenge,” a scientist investigated whether magpies or crows would be quicker to develop a taste for Cheetos—and which birds would ultimately steal them from the others.
The depth of knowledge, and experience shown here, as well as the writing skills leave me in awe most every week, as I scroll thru the weekly entries. There were 17 new birds that week, but the Horned Puffins remain my favorite. #1
I learned early and often when I moved to Colorado that a birder will have to up their physical ante to experience some of these birds. The huffin’ and puffin’ is always worth it in the end, however. Once removed from the treeless tundra, the excitement continues to roll on.
And, not every photograph is perfect; in some cases, Read presents several versions of a specific bird to show how what happens when you use, say, a shallow depth of field, like in the two puffin photos below. There is a lot of information in Mastering Bird Photography , and a lot of different types of information. “What’s Next?
Having shown us the bird, the boat, and the water, Fox then introduces herself: “Albatrosses, petrels, fulmars, puffins and gulls live out their lives along these transect lines; my job is to count them all.”. This is the story of Fox’s experiences on board the Achiever, the research vessel of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University and works for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but this story clearly has its roots in personal experience birding with young children. Author Mya Thompson has a Ph.D.
It was a beautiful day to be out on the water, and in no time, we were cruising around Craigleith with Atlantic Puffins , Razorbills , Common Murres , and Black-legged Kittiwakes. The birds on this island face their own challenges with Tree Mallow, a non-native plant that has endangered the puffin colony.
You can end up basking in a rare bird bliss that may linger for weeks, or you basically experience a living hell. There are few things worse than being extremely seasick, particularly if you pay close to $200 for the experience. Tufted Puffin. Can Mr. X really tell a Tufted Puffin from a Rhinocerous Auklet ?
Volunteering provides a very different experience to tourism though. There is no feeling in the world like knowing your helping something you care about, whether its sharks or puffins, protecting forests or reefs, advancing science or communities. Places like Tern Island are not open to tourists, but you can go as a volunteer.
He is also a serious birder (and a birding friend), and his birding observations and adventures are used throughout the book to introduce evolutionary questions and illustrate the mental interplay between personal experience and scientific curiosity. The book is smartly organized into 12 chapters. This is a book that requires attention.
The emphasis is on everyday birds seen in North America, though some of the more exotic and local species are thrown in for the color and romance of it all–Atlantic Puffin, Roseate Spoonbill, the poor extinct Heath Hen. Some of the chapters focus on a specific bird, most are about bird families like hawks, tanagers, wrens, etc.,
There is no place that compares to Maine with its rocky shorelines, freezing waters populated by wintering alcids, offshore islands filled with nesting Atlantic Puffins, mixed and boreal forests (the most forested state in the U.S., we learn) that are home to coveted boreal species, breeding wood-warblers, and two species of Grouse.
Now, dont get me wrong, there have been some nice birds, and locations in between, but these two experiences are just so hard to put out of my mind. At Dunnet Head, we got to see a couple of Atlantic Puffins, a few Razorbills, some Guillemots and gulls. Here is just a small portion of one wall, covered by Guillemots. Mom and her baby.
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