The puffins may be rotund, but wow, are they fast, especially when skimming over the sea at speeds of up to 55 mph in pursuit of herring and hake. Others, with their clownish beaks and parrotlike eyes, are unmistakably Atlantic puffins. Some have hooded black heads, like Batman’s these are the razorbill auks. Hundreds of seabirds are soaring overhead, searching the waters for breakfast. But if you come to Machias Seal Island on a specially permitted cruise like Patterson’s, and if the weather allows, you can actually climb onto the seaweed-slick rocks and see puffins up close.Īfter an hour’s ride, we arrive just offshore from the low-lying island and transfer to a small skiff for the landing. Though there are smaller colonies farther south-places like Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay and Matinicus Rock in Penobscot Bay-visitors can view those puffins only from the sea. Technically part of Canada (and not without controversy over its governance), Machias Seal Island is the Atlantic puffins’ southernmost major nesting site. Our destination is about a dozen miles out, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy: a tiny unspoiled sanctuary for the largest puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine. This is the Maine shoreline north of Bar Harbor, where summer estates give way to lighthouses standing sentinel above powerful tides and rugged coast. We glide past working lobster boats returning with their morning haul, and then past salmon farming nets that extend out from the harbor into the Atlantic. At 7 a.m., it’s anchors aweigh, and we head out on his 40-foot boat, the Barbara Frost. I count myself among the lucky few as I make my way at dawn to Cutler’s small harbor, where I find Patterson waiting with a dozen or so bleary-eyed bird lovers.
“We’ve seen a steady increase in demand for this tour over the years,” confirms Bold Coast’s Andy Patterson, the only U.S.-based tour captain permitted to bring folks ashore at Machias Seal Island, a major nesting site for Atlantic puffins. At Bold Coast Charter Company, which operates out of Cutler, Maine, all of the puffin cruises for 2020 were sold out by the first week of January.
#Puffin cruise maine tv
Just ask Coca-Cola, which gave the bird a leading role in one of its most successful TV spots a few years ago, in which a puffin struggles to open a bottle of Coke before putting that flamboyant bill to work.Ītlantic puffins enjoy such a high profile, in fact, that getting a seat on a boat to go see them can be a tall order. Whatever the reason, the Atlantic puffin is a bona fide wildlife star.
Or maybe the adorably plump shape that evokes a mini penguin. Atlantic puffins on Machias Seal Island, the largest puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine.ī lame it on the beak, that striped spectacle of orange, yellow, and black.
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