Birding on Machias Seal Island, Maine
A few years ago, having become quite enamored with puffins, I decided to see the puffins at Machias Seal Island, off Jonesport, Maine. Jonesport is on the coast just to the left of the "claw" at the easternmost point of the state. The island under the "D" in "Downeast" is Mount Desert Island, i.e. Acadia and Bar Harbor.
After a deal of research, I found that the perfect time to see the puffins was late July - early August, after the chicks had hatched but before they'd all left for sea. You see, puffins live in the water. They mate in the water, only return to land to lay the egg and tend to the chick. The first time the chick emerges from his or her puffin hole, it pops into the water and off they all go.
We drove up and arrived in Jonesport after midnight. There was some confusion about where exactly the "Puffin House" was - we'd rented an old sea captain's 4-bedroom house for the night, and I confused the directions to the dock (which we of course found) with the house directions. We sorted it out, pulled up to the house, and marvelled at its simple beauty. Then, exhausted, we set the alarm and tumbled quickly into bed.
We awoke at 5am, sun streaming into the room. Ah, it was cozy. The blankets were snuggly, the sun was warm, everything was fresh and clean smelling. We drifted back to sleep. 6:45am I awoke with a start, and realized the boat was going to leave for Puffin-Land in 15 minutes, with or without us. ARRRGGGHHHHHH! I cried out, and we quickly jumped into our clothes and raced out to the car, zipped around the few blocks to the dock. We tossed our breakfast bars, gatorade, binoculars, camera and bird book into a bag and sprinted for the dock.
Jonesport is near the eastern tip of Maine, which, being against the Bay of Fundy, has some of the highest tide differentials in the World. Inside the Bay, they *DO* have the highest tide differentials. The main dock was solid wood, maybe 10' above the water. The gangplank down to the "boat dock" the boat was tied up to was mobile - that is, the boat dock part was floating on the water, and the gangplank could move up and down. I'll try to draw a picture:
Well, anyway, you get the idea. We boarded the boat at high tide - the boat was about the height of the main deck, and the ramp down to that floating dock was about level. We didn't think about it, or about the bumpy ledges in the ramp. We climbed on, stowed our gear, and settled in. It was a nice boat - around 18 passengers on it, with a back open area and central enclosed (with big glass windows) area. Barna Norton came along, but his son drove out.
A quick note about Machias Seal Island. If you look at the US Govt web pages (very bottom), you'll see that it's a contested island! We claim it, as do the Canadians. It's a small island, just a lighthouse (manned by the Canadians) and a few bird naturalists there. Barna always wears an American Flag when he goes on - he claims it belongs to him and his family.
The trip over was uneventful. The thick fog still remained - you could barely see the tons of lobster buoys we passed! It started to clear as we reached the island around 8:30. We pulled up alongside a small boat which would hold maybe 7 people. Puffins were flapping in the water and air!! They didn't fly very gracefully - flapping their wings furiously, they seemed to barely stay aloft. There were also lots of arctic terns around. We were brought ashore in 2 waves - Bob and I gathered our gear and went on the second wave.
The boat pulled right up alongside the rusty dock (still, high tide) and we gathered. The Canadian warden warned us sternly that this was chick season. The tern nests were all marked with orange flags, but chicks are notorious for wandering. He told us all to always watch our feet - not the sky, not the flying birds, but our feet. We each picked up a stick from a bucket (to fend off the terns who thought we threatened the chicks) and walked towards the lighthouse.
Tern Chicks! Tons of nests, even right on the path, with anything from eggs to barely hatching eggs to teeny baby birds to big fluffy chicks! Terns nest on land, Puffins deep in holes. We made sure to watch where we stepped and heeded the ranger's exhortations to keep moving so we didn't upset the tern parents. We got to the lighthouse's patio area, complete with garden off to one side (with a nest in it, of course). We got ourselves settled and looked around the island - tons of puffins and terns! Puffins were all resting happily on the lighthouse building's roof. The lighthouse itself was there, and other than that there was barely an island, and every section had bunches of birds on it. The only mowed areas were the paths to each blind, the outhouse, and back to the dock.
He lead one group off to a big blind, then came back for the remaining 7 of us. On the way to our blind, there was a small tern chick in the path, holding a silver fish in its mouth but apparently the fish was too big for it. The ranger picked him up gently and moved him to the side of the path, but his hold on the fish slipped. Was the chick upset! The ranger retrieved the fish and put it back into the chick's mouth (a pacifier?) and it was again content. Our group got to share 2 blinds, and Bob and I got a blind with an elderly man with around $6,000 worth of camera equipment. He'd *tried* to come out two other times but had not been able to because of bad weather. We were lucky! We were careful to only open the blind windows on one side at a time - that leaves the inside dark. The fog cleared, leaving us with great views of the birds.
And what a view! The puffins were right there, on the coast. Fluffing, preening, doing their not-so-graceful landings on the rocks and on the roof of our blind!! Flap-flap-flap went their little feet as they waddled overhead. We saw several parents flying in with mouthfuls of lined up silver fish, going down into the puffin holes in the rock. We only saw one chick tucked in one - the rest were too deep to see the chicks in. There were also the terns and razorbills. We stayed in there an hour and 20 minutes, marvelling at the puffins, taking tons of pictures, watching them in their content world.
The ranger came back for us, and brought us all back to the patio again. More chicks along the way, so amazingly small. One big fluffy one near the patio was hungry, and the mother kept trying to fly down to give it a fish. The other terns were after the fish and kept chasing her away! I'm sure at some point she made it down, but not before we all headed back to the dock.
This is when the tide "problem" was amazingly apparent to us. The dock was now WAY above the height of the water. They put a wooden "bridge", around 2' wide, from the dock to a clump of seaweedy rocks, which one would then have to clamber down to get to the boat. The first guy was afraid to cross this wooden essentially piece of plywood which was not fastened to the rocks in any way. The ranger helped him across. The bridge looked pretty flimsy, but Bob went across next, balanced and unworried. I figured if he could do it, so could I, and bravely followed him, not looking down and taking small steps. The rocks were EXTREMELY slippery and it took a while to get down them without really slipping. The small boat waited patiently at the bottom. Bob helped hold it while people got on, and it took some of us back to the main boat and then went back for the others. Again, Bob helped people out and the boat get settled. We got back into our seats on the main boat.
The ride back was more interesting, now that the fog had lifted. There were a pair of porpoises that watched us with interest, a seal, a young gannet, and tons of lobster buoys. When we got into town, the water was much, much lower than when we left!! Docks everywhere were high and dry. Seawalls were huge. When we got to our own dock, the plank back to the main dock was almost 45 degrees. Pretty amazing. We got two Puffin patches, gathered our stuff, and climbed back up to our car.
I highly recommend the Machias Seal Island experience to any sea bird lover!
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