Of the wild creatures I filmed,
the face in the Atlantic puffin stands out vividly.
I'm David Brown a producer and cameraman for the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology
Atlantic puffins nest on Maine's Eastern Egg Rock
They share the seven-acre island with Laughing gulls, Black Guillemots,
and nearly fourteen hundred pairs of Common, Arctic,
and endangered Roseate Terns.
Dr. Steve Kress of Audubon invited sound recordist
Ian Fine and I to spend two days filming and recording on the island.
We had beautiful birds everywhere,
but we had to focus on our primary goal: documenting Puffins
for the Cornell Lab's Museum of animal behavior.
Working in those crowded breeding colonies it's hard to believe
that hunters in searching eegs feathers and meat stripped
Eastern Egg Rock of these beautiful birds by 1887
and wiped out Terns here by 1936.
This is the world's first restored seabird colony.
Dr. Kress and his team
pioneered re-colonization techniques here in the 1970s
using decoys to get Puffins imported from Newfoundland
to breed here. Decoys were also used to attract
Terns along with audio recordings to simulate the shrieking chaos of an
active Tern colony.
Terns nested on Eastern Egg Rock in 1980
and five breeding Puffin pairs nested in 1981 after nearly a hundred years of
absence.
The methods developed here
are now used worldwide to bring back lost sea bird colonies.
Having field researchers on the island keeps these colonies safe from expanding
populations a predatory Gulls.
Only 4 to 5 of these researchers camp on Eastern Egg Rock at a time.
Accommodations
include small tents, an outhouse, and the
Egg Rock Hilton, a solar-powered research station serving as both kitchen
conference room.
The camp's placed amidst
thousands of screaming Terns and the roor the Hilton provides a great
observation platform
from which to watch them bring a constant supply of fish to their
ravenous checks.
Researchers always leave camp as a group
to reduce disturbance to the birds.
They spend countless hours in blinds
observing and counting birds going about the serious business
of producing and raising their young.
Sunrise brings a fantastic chance for us to
spend time with the Puffins.
These numbers painted on granite boulders mark the burrows in which
these monogamous birds raise young
year after year.
Puffins are great swimmers
catching Sand Lance, Hake, and Herring down to 200 feet
and lining them up in their bills to bring ashore for their young.
They can fly in air and water
with wings adapted to move in both worlds.
The birds preen to keep their
feathers in good condition for flying
and for protection from the icy waters in which they dive.
They make various social displays
such as head flicking--an abrupt toss of the head accompanied by a grunting sound.
Billing is a behavior that reinforces pair bonds
formed and maintained over a life span of 30 years or more.
Standing here thirty years ago
we would have been extraordinarily lucky to sight a single native Puffin or nesting
Tern.
Today
everyone can enjoy this remarkable restoration knowing that this hopeful
story can replay wherever people are dedicated to wildlife conservation.
Biologists in a dozen countries have used methods first tested here
to restore more than 40 different species rare sea birds.
The effort of Steve Kress and Audubon's Project Puffin
created the chance for these charismatic a little birds
to again be part of this ecosystem.
Our opportunity this trip included a crystal clear morning with
40 Puffins surrounding us. A chance to experience a small
restored piece of an older, wilder world.