I have been on a quest to see Puffins, but the more I learned about them, the less likely it seemed. Other than coming to remote islands for a few months in the summer to give birth, they live their entire lives at sea and are rarely ever spotted even from ships at sea. Turns out there are only a few breeding colonies in Maine.
One of the islands where a summer colony has been re-established is Seal Island, just east of Matinicus. It's a long, thin, piece of jagged granite on which only birds live (though scientists visit). Fortunately, the water is deep right up to within a few feet of the island.
The weather departing Matinicus was settled so we decided to sail as close to Seal Island as possible with our binoculars in hand. As I was scanning the rocks and crevices, Viviane said "Oh, look at those funny birds in the water in front of us". I trained the binoculars on them and, sure enough, they were Puffins. Lots of them. They were much smaller than we expected.
We didn't see any on the island, but we did see lots of them swimming in the waters around the islands and even for some distance as we sailed away from the Island.
I took a lot of pictures. They are skittish so we could never get very close and my zoom lens isn't very powerful. Once I uploaded the pictures and digitally zoomed in, it is clear (ok, fuzzy) that they are Puffins.
The day was a record for wildlife. We saw seals, porpoises, a whale, the puffins, storm petrels and, also for the first time, Gannets.
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