On Ramsey Island, they are trying something a little quirky to lure puffins back. They have placed hundreds of puffin decoys to trick the sea clowns to the island. If they work, the puffins will find burrows and nests built just for them by these puffin researchers/conservations. If this works, it’ll be the first puffins there for over a century! =) Let’s hope they succeed. We are rooting you on for certain!

(A video about this on BBC can be see here.)

This event is being held at the Carlisle Visitor Center in LaGrange, Ohio this Saturday, January 12th 2011. This event is free but space is limited.

Here is the description from the website,

Humans have devastated seabird colonies by excessive hunting and by introducing non-native mammals. Worldwide, 23% of all seabird species are now globally threatened by pollution, coastal development, and sea level rise from global warming. Although seabird nesting islands seem safe due to their remoteness, they are intimately connected to human activities.

Stephen Kress, Director of National Audubon Society’s Seabird Restoration Program, will review how techniques developed in Maine led to the restoration of puffins and terns to their historic nesting islands. He will also describe how these techniques help seabirds worldwide through several case studies including efforts to save the Common Murres in California, Caspian Terns in the Columbia River estuary, and the endangered Bermuda Petrel.

Location:

12882 Diagonal Road
LaGrange, Ohio 44050
440-458-5121

Stephen Kress has also given an excellent speech titled, “Restoring Endangered Seabirds: Lessons from Puffins and Terns,” which is available for order at the National Digital Library.

NATIONAL WILDLIFE MAGAZINE Aug/Sep 1994, vol. 32 no. 5 The Puffins Keep Their Secrets By Les Line These small seabirds delight human visitors to rocky islands in north seas, yet remain biological mysteries.

The lore of the Atlantic puffin, a species that ranks among everyone’s favorite seabirds, includes an enduring story about how parent birds starve their single nearly grown chicks until hunger motivates the youngsters to leave the security of clifftop burrows and, in the dark of night, leap to the pounding sea.

A famous Welsh birdman, Ronald Lockley, discovered this behavior in the 1930s while studying puffins on the island of Skokholm off Wales. When matchsticks that he lodged…

Read the rest of this article (IT IS WORTH THE READ REALLY!!!) and more National Wildlife Magazine features online.

I received my May/June issue for Bird Watcher’s Digest magazine and was delighted to see an article about puffins in it. You can pick this issue up at the local book store or anywhere that sells magazines probably.  Or you can read part of that article here.

The author tells of her adventure seeing the Atlantic Puffin in the United States. And this she did…