#atlantic puffin colony

[jadafitch]

Petit Manan Lighthouse, Petit Manan Island, Steuben. Possibly my favorite lighthouse. In the summer, this island is home to hundreds of birds. Including Atlantic puffins, arctic, common and roseate terns, as well as black guillemots and many more. Decided I couldn't draw them all, but here's a couple attempts to try and capture the island's vibes. Can you spot the oystercatchers? MERCH

[vox-anglosphere]

No one goes to Newfoundland for the weather. It's for the scenery!

[kaelula-sungwis]

🇨🇦🐧🐧 by Dave Wong

[wonderlesch]

Amazing Travel Adventures - Maine

Amazing Travel Adventures - Maine is a travel destination guide sharing Maine's beauty, blueberries, horror stories and more. Let's travel Maine!

Hello, and welcome to Amazing Travel Adventures – Maine sharing My Travel Destination Guide for a few of my favorite things to do in Maine. Read on to explore Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park, Maine Botanical Gardens, L.L. Bean’s Flagship Store and so much more. Let’s travel Maine style! Thunder Hole Thunder Hole is a small inlet that is naturally carved out of the shoreline along Maine’s…

[panoramicireland]

Fulmar Flypast, Mull, Scotland

I've photographed fulmars in Ireland before but on a recent puffin-watching expedition to Scotland I had the chance, briefly to see another.

Young fulmars spend five years fully at sea, coming back to land to choose a colony after that but even then they won't breed for another few years. They can live for over forty years.

In this image you can see the tube-nose from which the tubenose family get their name, the birds possess a gland which helps to process, store then eject saline through the tube - salty water collected when diving for fish in the north Atlantic.

Fulmar comes from Norse, it means foul gull and relates to the stinking stomach oil that the bird regurgitates in order to deter threats. It matts the feathers of other birds and it covers other animals (humans too) with the stinky non-soluble fluid that can destroy clothes.

You've been warned - keep your distance! Enjoy these majestic fliers from afar.

[sixhole]

Do you know how an Atlantic Puffin sounds? Though silent at sea, colonies are a cacophony of buzzy grunts that sound like chainsaw cords being pulled. You can hear some birds landing and stomping on the blind too. Listen for the high pitched wails of the Arctic Terns in the background.

This is a short video I took of the alcid colony at Machias Seal Island, New Brunswick, in June of 2023.

[jimrichardsonng]

Scotland Fix of the Day: By now many of you may be dreaming of a Scotland trip next year. Just planning for such a trip can be a strong antidote to the darkening days of winter coming upon us. And many of you will be hoping to find some undiscovered gem of a destination, someplace unspoiled and untrammeled. So I thought I might offer a couple of possible locations that really are off the beaten track and for the first one I can’t think of a better adventure than trying to get out to St. Kilda. And getting to these island forty miles out in the Atlantic, beyond the Outer Hebrides, can be trying. Weather is a big obstacle and most boat tour operators will want you to book two consecutive days in order to have a chance of making it on one of them. (I once traveled out with a group of friends who had been coming back every year for nine years and hadn’t made it yet — until that day.) Boats depart from both Lewis and Harris and there is now a tour that leaves from the Isle of Skye. Expect the trip to be at least three hours. But if you make it you’ll be among only about 2,000 lucky visitors — per year! And you’ll be warmly welcomed by the National Trust for Scotland rangers who watch after this double UNESCO Wold Heritage Site treasure, honored for both its cultural heritage and its wildlife. You could say the two are connected: the final abandonment in 1930 by the residents who had survived there for millennia contributed to making this remote archipelago an even more inviting place for hundreds of thousands of seabirds, prime amongst them being huge colonies of puffins and gannets. It’s spectacular. My photographic work for National Geographic has actually taken me to St. Kilda several times (I’m really quite fortunate) and every time has been hugely memorable, a landmark travel experience. So if you decide to have a go at St. Kilda I won’t kid you: it’s not going to be easy. But St. Kilda is the very definition of “off the beaten track.” #scotland #stkilda #bestofscotland #hiddenscotland #natgeo #lindbladexpeditions #nationalTrustforScotland #scotland_highlights#ig_scotland #visitscotland #scotlandgreatshots #scotland_greatshots #igersscotland #unlimitedscot — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/GApc5Ej

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Atlantic Puffin

Photo: Michael Ransburg

"Nesting around the edges of the North Atlantic, this puffin is sought after by birdwatchers who visit Maine or eastern Canada in summer. At its colonies, the bird may fly back to its nest carrying a dozen small fish lined up in its bill, making us wonder how the puffin holds onto ten slippery fish while grabbing two more. Gregarious at its nesting sites, the Atlantic Puffin is often solitary in winter, far from land on the open ocean."

- Audubon Field Guide

[theweeowlart]

🔴 Sold, thank you

St Kilda, Scotland. The UK's only dual UNESCO World Heritage Site. Home to nearly 1 million seabirds, including the UK's largest colony of Atlantic puffins.

My drawing is available…

https://theweeowlstudio.etsy.com/listing/1597349998

or you can search for 'TheWeeOwlStudio' on Etsy.

[supremebirdbracket]

Puffin battle! Who will continue on?

Atlantic puffins, also called common puffins, live across the North Atlantic, breeding on coastlines and spending the rest of their time at sea. They dive underwater to catch fish and crabs. They are social and breed in large colonies, most of which are in Iceland, but are solitary in the winter. They are largely monogamous, but tend to be more loyal to nesting sites than to mates. Pairs bond by building nests and rattling their bills together. These puffins burrow underground to nest, and so can fly, dig, and swim. On average, Atlantic puffins live to be 30 or more years old, with the oldest recorded being 41 years. Puffin chicks are called “pufflings.” Unfortunately, these birds are classified as Vulnerable due to pollution such as oil spills.

Tufted puffins are found in the North Pacific Ocean. Like many other shorebirds, they breed on islands and spend the rest of their lives at sea. Young birds may spend the first 3 years of their lives at sea, until they are old enough to breed and return to land. They feed on underwater on squid, krill, and fish; adults mostly eat squid and krill, while they feed fish to their young. They nest in burrows, which can be over 5 feet deep.

[vox-anglosphere]

It's breeding season along the Atlantic coast - God bless them all

[kaelula-sungwis]

🇨🇦🐧 Puffin | Newfoundland by Dave Wong

[aneighborhoodnaturalist]

Puffins are highly social birds. When reintroducing them to their original range in North America, conservationists needed to simulate a colony using recorded puffin calls, mirrors, and artificial puffins to entice puffins to return to nest.

(Atlantic puffins)

[panoramicireland]

Razorbills - Alca torda

Related to the puffin, the razorbill can often be seen nesting and breeding in colonies that include puffins, as well as fulmars along the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Scotland.

Unlike the puffin, the razorbill is usually only seen as a plain black and white bird, with its distinctive line running from the bill back to its brown-iris eyes as seen in the image above.

But, when it opens its bill there is a flash of bright, almost golden yellow on the bird's palate.

[foerodens]

Face to face with an Atlantic puffin. These beautiful and weird birds spend their time at sea and return to the coast in spring for breeding. One of the colonies lies on the island Runde in Norway and I had the opportunity to see them up close – really close – this weekend. It was an amazing experience and I hope to visit another time and do the boat tour around the island.

Photo: Foe Rodens The photo is available for purchase via my Redbubble and Society6 store.