![]() By the end of the season, we discovered that only about 30 percent of the puffin pairs had managed to fledge young because there wasn't enough nutritious small food around. Helpless to advise them to choose smaller fish, I was saddened when the chick died surrounded by food that was too large for him to swallow. One puffin chick, which we nicknamed ‘Petey,’ couldn’t swallow the oversized butterfish that his parents brought him. Often, it's the quality and kind of fish that determines whether a chick survives, as well as a sufficient quantity of food. Most useful, I was able to learn how many fish were delivered to the chick-and even the kinds of fish-much more accurately than I could observe from outside the burrow. With this new tool, I could determine in great detail when a pair of puffins laid their egg, when it hatched and when the chick left the nest (fledged), all without disturbing the nesting parents. So I was thrilled in 2012 when, through a partnership with, I was able to place a HD live-streaming video cam inside of a puffin burrow at Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge, 18 miles off the coast of Rockland, Maine. But we've always wanted to be able to measure chick survival and feeding more carefully. Usually we check 60 nests in a colony once a week to see whether eggs hatch and chicks survive. They try to catch the healthiest (high in protein and fat) fish for their chick that are within reach. Puffins may fly 20 miles in search of fish for their young and doing so burns a lot of energy, limiting just how far they can venture from their nesting island without jeopardizing their own health. Each pair typically lays a single egg during a breeding season, and the parents take turns watching the egg or chick and flying to catch food. Puffins are colonial breeders, gathering in large groups to dig nesting burrows on coastal or island cliffs. So each spring for the past forty years, I have migrated from Ithaca, New York to mid-coast Maine to observe the birds during their breeding season. We still need to keep a close eye on puffins to learn how warming seawater and other aspects of climate change are affecting their populations and lifestyles. ![]() ![]() Their recovery took 40 years of dedicated conservation work-but the work isn't over. ![]() In the late 19th century, spotting such overladen beaks was rare, as hunting for food and feathers had depleted most puffin colonies along the Maine coast. Puffins are famous for loading their colorful beaks with a dozen or more fish and winging home to feed their solitary, ravenous chick. Not the usual flying fish that skim over tropical seas, but fish dangling from the beaks of flying puffins. In recent years, I have taken to watching flying fish along the Maine coast. ![]()
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