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Get to know Maine’s wildlife!

Maine is a place of diverse creatures, some familiar, some not so well known.
Visit our Creature Feature often to learn a little more about what makes Maine so special.

Puffins are a “life list” species for avid birders, a sudden curiosity for unaware tourists, and, thanks to years of effort by biologist Dr. Stephen Kress and his team of biologists, a fact of living on the Maine coast for the rest of us. And who doesn’t love puffins? With their black-and-white plumage, webbed orange feet, and bright, downright clown-like face, puffins have definite mass appeal.

Puffins are alcids, a family of birds that includes murres, guillemots, razorbills, and the extinct great auk. In the Northern Hemisphere, alcids fill the same ecological niche as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere. Both alcids and penguins are wing-propelled, diving birds that prey on fish and live in colonies; the main difference is that alcids fly and penguins do not.

Here, naturalist-writer Ted Williams describes puffins at feeding time:

“Puffins emerge from the sea with fish draped neatly from their beaks like socks from a clothesline. It seems as if someone with fingers had to have helped with the arrangement, but the bird’s raspy tongue holds each fish against spines on its palate so it can open its beak and grab another. In flight, puffins resemble badly thrown footballs; when they hit the water they keep ‘flying,’ propelled by short, powerful wings to depths of at least 80 feet.”

Puffin colonies were re-established in Maine beginning in the 1970s, when biologists moved chicks from Newfoundland to Eastern Egg Rock and Seal Island, where they were once abundant but were hunted to extinction (for eggs and meat) in the 1880s. Today, nesting pairs are at an all-time high with well over 400 pairs documented in 2008.

Puffins arrive on Eastern Egg Rock and Machias Seal Island in spring to build nests for a single egg. The baby puffin will remain in his burrow until he can fly and swim on his own. Puffins like to hang out on the rocks with their buddies, and each likes to be higher than his neighbor. Unlike their cousins the razorbills, some puffins will choose to nest on a different island than the one they were born on, and they spend time "checking out" other islands before they pick one on which to settle down and breed. After five months or so, after the mom and dad have taken turns incubating the egg, and the "puffling" is ready to fledge, the birds will leave solid ground to fly, swim, and ride the ocean winds.

Where they go exactly, however, is still a mystery. It is believed that they spend the winter floating across the North Atlantic Ocean, but beyond that our knowledge is limited. Scott Hall, research coordinator for Project Puffin, has outfitted several puffins with geolocator tags and is in the process of tracking the birds through their yearly migration.

To see them yourself, take your binoculars and board a boat out of New Harbor, Boothbay Harbor, or Port Clyde.

Links:
National Audubon Society’s Project Puffin and Seabird Restoration Program
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Seal Island/Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge

This Creature Feature was provided by Catherine Schmitt, a biologist who lives in Bangor.