Flight Of The Puffins

I saw my first puffin in Iceland in 2007 and immediately fell in love with these quirky little birds. At the end of 2007, I adopted my first puffin through Project Puffin, an organisation that helps restore puffins and other seabird colonies to islands in the Gulf of Maine.

Every year I receive an update of what my puffin got up to on Eastern Egg Rock Island over the past summer. Sometimes the news is happy and sometimes sad. I celebrate when my puffin’s chicks fledge, and cry when they don’t. The worst updates are the ones informing me my puffin didn’t return to the island. EN 53 was my first puffin, followed by the intriguingly named Q. Sadly, neither of these puffins have returned to the island. My current puffin is MR 795.

 

Since adopting my first puffin, it has been a dream of mine to travel to Maine and visit Eastern Egg Rock Island. Ten years after I adopted my first puffin, I fulfilled that dream. The best way to see the puffins and Eastern Egg Rock Island is on a puffin cruise. As I had traveled a long way to get there, I treated myself to a morning and evening cruise.

My first puffin trip was Cap’n Fish’s morning cruise which left from Boothbay Harbor. A Project Puffin staff member joined us for the trip and gave an informative talk. As we made our way to Eastern Egg Rock Island, puffins were spotted in the water. I leaned over the side of the boat and saw a group of puffins bobbing in the waves. They were so close! I watched as their orange feet paddled under the water and marvelled at the way they launched their black and white bodies into the sky. The closer we got, the more puffins we saw. There were puffins flying across the skyline, some with beaks filled with fish. We watched as they flew to the island and landed on the craggy rocks. We spent a good amount of time circling the island and watching the puffins go about their daily business before returning to Boothbay Harbor.

 

My second puffin trip was an evening cruise with Hardy Boat Cruises in New Harbor. We departed around sunset, so although the trip was similar to the morning one, it had a very different feel. Watching puffins fly across the sky at dusk was magical. Again we saw puffins bobbing in the waves close to our boat. When we we arrived at Eastern Egg Rock Island, we actually picked someone up from the island. We watched as a Project Puffin staff member was rowed to our boat, boarded, and then watched as the rower returned to the island. This was an unexpected surprise. I’m so glad I did both trips.

When I received my latest puffin adoption update I was happy to discover that MR 795 was at the island when I visited and successfully fledged a chick called A4 and adorably nicknamed “McFluffin.” I’ve already asked if I can adopt McFluffin if she/he ever becomes available 🙂