The "puffin season" in Maine ended in August when the birds all left the coast islands for the open seas.
I'll be back for another tour of Machias Seal Island in June, armed with lots of gift products which I'll be designing over the winter.
BTW, the Puffin tote bag from Cafepress arrived today and it looks great. Cafe Press gets my designs over the web and does the production, I get a commission. I order my own products to see if they look ok. The mug I designed needs some work so I'm going to tweak the photo a bit. If anyone wants to create any products from your own photos or art, try Cafepress.com So far I've gotten great service and products from them.
After "puffin season", comes foliage season and I'll be spending a lot of time in October up in New Hamsphire. I'll be based in Newbury, NH near Lake Sunapee and will make side trips to the White Mountains, the Connecticut River Valley side of Vermont, and where ever else I can find "leaves of color".
My previous year's covered bridge and other scenic shots of New Hampshire and Vermont are on my main photo website
About Me
- The Puffin Man
- Arlington, MA, United States
- Here's the boring stuff: Born and raised in NYC. Learned how to use a camera at 13, but was so bad in art that I stopped taking pictures by 25. Then I took up birdwatching in my early 40s, trained myself how to see pictures, started marketing images 10 years later.
What is a Pelagic Bird?
Pelagic (pronounced with a soft "a") or oceanic species spend most of their lives in the open seas.
An example is the albatross family, famous for their "wandering" about the oceans, and as a metaphor in Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Unfortunately, the great poem gave the Albatross a bad name. There's nothing scary or mean about an albatross. Coleridge used this as a metaphor because superstitious sailors of the day believed the bird contained 'the souls of dead sailors'. The Great/Wandering Albatross is the world's largest flying bird, and can have a wingspan of up to 11 feet and a weigh 25 lbs. Imagine having to carry one of those around your neck! (I'll never forgot the speech impaired Mayor of Boston who once said that "high taxes are like an Alcatraz around your neck")
Puffins and albatrosses may spend most of their days "out to sea" but birds lay eggs, unlike fish eggs, avian eggs need nests and nests need land. Atlantic Puffins nest on small islands like Machias Seal Island and others of the coast of Northern Maine and Canada. They arrive in large colonies in May, each female can lay one egg. After the eggs hatch and the young bird is ready to fledge, the parents head out back to sea for until the following spring. Oh yes, the Puffins are monogomous, one pair stays together "till death do them part"
An example is the albatross family, famous for their "wandering" about the oceans, and as a metaphor in Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Unfortunately, the great poem gave the Albatross a bad name. There's nothing scary or mean about an albatross. Coleridge used this as a metaphor because superstitious sailors of the day believed the bird contained 'the souls of dead sailors'. The Great/Wandering Albatross is the world's largest flying bird, and can have a wingspan of up to 11 feet and a weigh 25 lbs. Imagine having to carry one of those around your neck! (I'll never forgot the speech impaired Mayor of Boston who once said that "high taxes are like an Alcatraz around your neck")
Puffins and albatrosses may spend most of their days "out to sea" but birds lay eggs, unlike fish eggs, avian eggs need nests and nests need land. Atlantic Puffins nest on small islands like Machias Seal Island and others of the coast of Northern Maine and Canada. They arrive in large colonies in May, each female can lay one egg. After the eggs hatch and the young bird is ready to fledge, the parents head out back to sea for until the following spring. Oh yes, the Puffins are monogomous, one pair stays together "till death do them part"
some acknowledgements
Now that the Puffin Man has flown after weeks of hacking away at website and blog, I want to thank some people who helped this web-luddite to get airborn: Andy Patterson who got me to Machias Seal Island smoothly and safely, Barbara who didnt laugh in my face when I suggested this idea(and who I can credit/blame for the title),Hil & Jo for long distance phone support, Tina my friend, colleague,artist and web expert, everyone at Smugmug.com and DigitalGrin.com who helped me w/coding on thepuffinman.com, everyone at Tufts Human Resources who puts up w/my "puffonery" every day
