Back in 2012, we visited Matinicus Rock, a distance of 18 miles from Rockland, to view the puffin colony. Every year since then during summer, I often connect to the Live Streaming of puffins on the internet to watch as they rest, eat, and strut around the rocks on Seal Island. Puffins spend most of their time at sea, however for a period of around 8 weeks, they arrive to breed on Eastern Egg Island, Matinicus Rock and Seal Island. Back in 1973 Dr. Stephen Kress from the National Audubon Society started a project to restore puffins on Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay. As puffins usually return to breed on the same island where they hatch, 954 young pufflings were transplanted from Newfoundland between 1973 and 1986 to Eastern Egg Rock. The transplanted puffins began returning in June 1977.
We left Boothbay in order to go back to Matinicus Rock, however, Eastern Egg Rock was close to our track to Penobscot Bay, so we changed course to see this interesting island. It is quite a small rocky island with a grassy tufted area where the puffin burrows are located. There are a few wooden puffin decoys positioned on the rock ledges to lure puffins to the island and make them feel safe. During the summer months a team of volunteers spend time on the island studying and researching the puffins. At present there are 150 breeding pairs. Being bird enthusiasts, we felt quite privileged to see these rare quirky birds. If you would like to see the puffins live on Seal Rock, go to:
http://explore.org/#!/live-cams/player/puffin-loafing-ledge-cam
During the afternoon, we saw clouds moving in from the west. Maynard put out 70 meters of chain in 7 meters of water as we were the only ones in our part of the anchorage at the time. We don't like worrying about the anchor and like having a lot of swinging room. After sunset, the wind came up to 25 - 30 knots with the approaching storm front. It was accompanied by lightning and very heavy rain which came through in waves from around 10pm to 2am. Five windjammers anchored next to us as but at a good distance. They didn't move and neither did we overnight. The bonus was that we received a lovely free freshwater wash down in the process, a saving for our watermaker.
(For more photos, see Gallery named "Puffin Away"). Link for the Live Streaming of Puffins in the sidebar to the right of this blog.