Cannon Beach, Oregon 2009

Originally uploaded by mnirishman

Watch for the many rare and spectacular birds that can be seen here. Haystack Rock is the closest accessible observation point to see tufted puffins
during their spring and summer nesting seasons. Tens of  thousands of common murres can be seen in spring and summer on Bird Rocks near Chapman Point. Many varieties of shorebirds are spotted on beaches and estuaries during spring and fall migrations. Look for a variety of seabirds and
ducks in fall and winter. From spring to early fall, pelicans can be observed soaring just above the waves or diving into the water with a splash. See bald eagles and peregrine falcons as they patrol the coast year-round.

You can read more about Cannon Beach here.

For reservations and information call 1-207-633-3244 – 1-800-636-3244 Email Cap’n Fish at mainewhales@adelphia.net

Email us at: mainepuffins@roadrunner.com

ABOUT PUFFINS

Stay at Cap’n Fish’s Waterfront Inn and receive discount tickets to Cap’n Fish’s Whale Watch and Scenic Boat Tours. Puffins are cool! With those big colorful beaks, dark soulful eyes and a penguin-like appearance, it’s hard not to like them. Puffins can typically be found in the very chilly waters of the North Atlantic, in places like Iceland and Norway. Lucky for us then that not far from Boothbay Harbor is the southernmost Atlantic Puffin colony in all of North America – Eastern Egg Rock. In Maine, Puffins are rare, and are actually listed as a Threatened Species. On Eastern Egg Rock, however, there are about 90 nesting pairs, along with perhaps a thousand pairs of Terns and other unusual seabirds. During the summertime, Puffins come ashore to raise their young, and the female lays her egg in a crevice under the tumble of boulders that line the shoreline of Eastern Egg Rock Once the chicks are full grown – usually by mid-August – all the Puffins leave their nesting island and fly out to sea to spend the winter. And they don’t come back to land til next April.

ABOUT THE TOUR

A Puffin-watching cruise is kind of like an ocean-going treasure hunt…. you just never know what’s going to show up! As we travel through Boothbay Harbor and search for all the marvelous sea creatures which call this area their home, seals often surface near the boat, or can be found sunning themselves on the rocks. A loon flies by. A Minke Whale surprises everyone with its sheer size and bulk. And, of course there are lighthouses, which we know as permanent treasures here on the New England coast. As the boat gets to Eastern Egg Rock, everyone is up and looking around for those pint-sized little Puffins. We scan the rocks and the skies, and then someone shouts, and lo and behold there is a group of Puffins sitting in the water, bobbing up and down, perhaps 50 or 60 feet from the boat. More fly by, and soon someone spots a bunch sitting on the granite boulders along shore. We slowly circle the seven-acre island once or twice, and dozens of large Eider Ducks spring from the water into flight. Laughing Gulls cry out with their loud, cackling vocalizations. And more puffins and their funny little cousins, the Black Guillemots, whiz past us, going about 40 miles an hour. When its time to start back, the excitement on the boat is still high. Success! We saw a bird that very few Mainers have ever seen – the ocean-going, charismatic Atlantic Puffin… ~ Peter Salmansohn, Project Puffin

PRICES AND SCHEDULE

See at first hand the National Audubon Society’s success in reestablishing a Puffin Colony on Eastern Egg Rock. Truly a magnificent “Seafari” for all nature lovers with seals, blue heron, an occasional whale and other coastal wildlife along the way. June – Wednesdays only 10:00 am July – Late August – Wednesdays, Sundays 10:00am 2 1/2 Hour Tour ADULTS: $25.00 CHILDREN $15.00

(Source: http://www.mainepuffin.com/)

A friend is visiting New York and she went to the Central Park Zoo where she promptly sent me a photo from her cell phone.

Tufted Puffins at the NYC Central Park Zoo

According to the official Central Park Zoo they have approximately 15 Tufted Puffins at their location. =) YAY for puffins!

For now, here is the general information about the NYC Central Park Zoo in case you wish to visit:

Location: East Side between 63rd and 66th Streets

Detail:
- Hours: April – Oct. Monday – Friday 10 am – 5 pm, Weekends 10 am – 5:30 pm; Nov. – March Daily 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
- Admission to Wildlife Center includes admission to Children’s Zoo: Adults $10.00; Senior Citizens (65+) $7.00; Children 3-12 $5.00; Children under 3, Free
- General Information: 212-439-6500

The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve contains four islands—Gull, Green, Great, and Pee Pee—that teem with bird life during the seabird breeding season.

The reserve contains North America’s largest Atlantic puffin colony. More than 260,000 pairs of the province’s official bird nest here during the late spring and summer.

In addition, black-legged kittiwakes and common murres appear in the thousands.

The islands lie just a few kilometres off the east coast of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, between the communities of Bay Bulls and Bauline East, half an hour south of St. John’s. The reserve area takes in 31 km²-29 km² of this is a marine area around the islands. Regulations govern the operation of boats inside the reserve during the sensitive nesting season (April 1-September 1).

Seabirds generally spend most of the year at sea and only return to land from May to August to breed and raise their young. For the most part, public observation of their activities must be done from boats-landing on the islands themselves requires a scientific research or special access permit.

The Witless Bay Islands are part of the Maritime Barrens-Southeastern Barrens subregion (pdf). The Islands were originally designated a wildlife reserve in 1964. They became the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve in 1983, three years after the Wilderness and Ecological Reserves Act was passed.

(The above information was copy and pasted directly from the official website for Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.)

If you want to see the ‘largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America’ you can book a tour with O’Briens.

If you visit the Bandon Dunes along Oregon’s rocky coastline you will see the puffin adorning signs and entrances because puffins once crowded these shore cliffs. For awhile the tufted puffin population suffered and the birds were not as plentiful but as of late the vast numbers of Puffins on the Bandon Dunes have been growing again. This is a good story amongst the many sad ones about puffin populations disappearing, dwindling coast-after-coast.

There are reports of the Tufted Puffin coming in early spring and summer to Coquille Point which stretches the coastline between Sixth Street SW and 11th Street SW in Bandon, Oregon. It is one of the more accessible places to observe wildlife according to Jan Lee. You can part at the west end of 11th Street SW and there you will find a stairway to the beach. Bring binoculars and your camera!

But the puffin fun in Oregon doesn’t stop in Bandon. According to the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Oregon puffins can be found in various places along the Oregon coast. This is the paragraph their site had on Tufted Puffins:

Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) – The Tufted Puffin is found along the Pacific coast from Alaska to southern California. They nest along the entire Oregon coast on coastal rocks where soil topped islands exist. Two thirds of the birds in Oregon nest at Three Arch Rocks NWR. Tufted Puffins have the most extensive latitudinal distribution of all the alcids ranging from Japan, through the Aleutian Islands south to Oregon, and southern California. They are colonial nesters although they will nest singly. Tufted Puffins need enough of a slope to give them enough lift to take off into the air from the rock or nest site location. Although they are not the most graceful birds in the air they make up for it under the water where they can truly fly. Their nests are burrows in the soil that can be up to six feet long. The nest itself is at the end of the burrow, usually lined with dry grasses and feathers. In April, laying begins with a clutch of a single egg. Incubation is 44 days by both sexes. Young will fledge at forty-nine days but can leave the burrow before that time. Anchovies, smelt, sand lance, and herring make up most of their diet. The young are fed small fish that are carried in the adults beaks three or four at a time. The Tufted Puffin molts the top layer its colorful beak every summer after chicks have fledged marking the end of the breeding season. Tufted Puffins winter at sea and are rarely seen from land during that time. The Tufted Puffin’s longevity record is six years. A good location for viewing these birds is Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach.

Puffin (Photograph by DK Bhaskar

Visit puffins (and many other great seabirds) on this travel trip to Scotland.
“More than 75,000 puffins breed on these little islands, along with 30 other species of seabirds. Nearly 160 different species of birds migrate through this passage every year,” said Marsh, carefully guiding us along the wooden pathways.

Farne Islands (BBC photo)

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2009 Schedule

Puffin Cruises
Glacier Spirit

Saturdays, 6 to 9 pm

July 11, 18, 25 and August 1 & 8, 2009

Protection Island, at the mouth of Discovery Bay, is a very special; place in the summer. Dry, brown and lonely, it looks like a most inhospitable place. But it is alive with thousands of nesting birds – rhinocerous auklets, glaucous-winged gulls, pigeon guillemots, double-crested and pelagic cormorants, black oystercatchers, and even a few pairs of tufted puffins. It is for a glimpse of the elusive tufted puffin that many visitors make the trip. As every birder knows, no guarantee can be made that they will be sighted on every outing, but chances are very good that they will be spotted especially on the south side of the island. Like rhinocerous auklets, for which Protection Island is the major nesting site, the puffin use burrows in the cliffs and uplands to raise one or sometimes two chicks. The chance to see them carrying many small fish at one time in their bills, or even swimming, flying, or diving, is exciting.

Reservations: Tickets are $55 per person ($50 for PTMSC, Audubon, Burke Museum or Washington Ornithological Society members) and child or group rates may be arranged. Proceeds go to support educational programs at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

Protection Island Cruises are offered in collaboration with Puget Sound Express.
For reservations: (800) 566-3932 ~ (360) 385-5582 ~ e-mail: cruises@ptmsc.org

You can see Puffins at Skomer Island in Wales. There you will spot guillemots, razorbills and puffins and if you visit in May could catch a glimpse of hatching puffin chicks on a carpet of indigo bluebells. Walk to the rocks at Garland Stone and hang out with the Atlantic grey seals or take a closer look at the nesting seabirds at The Wick.

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