Meet The Atlantic Puffin
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 09:00PM 
I know, I know...I should be doing my homework for both of my classes but I had such an exciting weekend that I just needed to share it. I also just wanted to spend some time looking at those photo's...I promise to get the rest of my lessons done though. I am working on the instagram, just need to figure a few things out with that.
Now back to my weekend...Another one knocked off the bucket list and 3 years in the planning. I finally went 12 miles off the coast of Maine, into the Atlantic ocean, and meet my little Puffin friends. Tiny little colorful birds that I will be blogging and bragging about in the next few weeks.
Seal Island is a bird sanctuary that Canada designated in 1944. Canada claims the Island belongs to them and the United States claims it belongs to us..so both countries have agreed to disagree and they both claim it. Both flags fly on the Island and special permission is needed to land there. So you can't just row your boat up and go visit the birds. It is carefully and closing guarded with a light house and a research team. We were lucky enough to make it this year. Eleven of us went from power boat, to a larger vessel and then when we got close to the Island we were over the side into another power boat. We were broken up into groups of 4 and sent into blinds to view and photograph the birds. I had never been in a blind before and it was a pretty tight space with tiny little windows. The views and the sounds of the birds were awesome. I will show you and tell you more about this trip as I move through my photo's. What I will tell you now is that it was very exciting to be that close with nature. Not only the birds, which was the high light of course, but to experience this tiny Island off the coast of Maine was wonderful. In some ways surreal.
For now I will leave you with my first photo. A quick pick because I took over 1,000 photo's and just couldn't decide where to even start. What I liked about this one is that it's straight out of the camera except for a tiny bit of lightening on his face. No crop, no Photoshop. The point I'm trying to make with this shot is to show you just how close we were to the birds in those blinds. There are other shots that were even closer but that's for another day.
So have you crossed anything off your bucket list lately. Maybe now would be a good time to think about that. It is such a powerful feeling to know that I am doing so many of the things that I have put down on my list...It gives me the strength and courage to move onto the next "thing" that I didn't think years ago that I could do...more power to bucket lists...hoping you can cross something off of your own list.
"As you grow older you find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do." Zachary Scott
Reader Comments (9)
Wonderful capture and beautiful image! We have two varieties of puffins here in southcentral Alaska and I have only seen them in the wild once. So happy for you that you were able to make this weekend trip. What a blessing you were able to get so close to these little charmers :)
That's a gorgeous bird!
How cool is that?! I would love to live in Atlantic Canada .... I am in the Ottawa area of Ontario. Good to know that these birds are protected by two caring countries.
Lisa
great shot!
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