By David Able
Eastern Egg Rock, Maine - On a recent balmy afternoon, (click here) at the extreme southern end of their range, a steady stream of Atlantic puffins, with their unmistakable tuxedo plumage and orange webbed feet, swooped in from the sea, alighting on the granite rocks surrounding this remote island off midcoast Maine.
Many carried in their multicolored beaks the small fish their chicks depend on for survival, and that have been increasingly difficult for puffins to find as waters warm.
Biologists are watching intently to gauge the future of this beloved, bellwether species. Maine’s population, long stressed, took an alarming hit last summer as water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine surged to record highs. As the chunky seabirds struggled to find enough to eat, the number of surviving chicks plummeted to about a quarter, down from about two-thirds in a typical year...
Eastern Egg Rock, Maine - On a recent balmy afternoon, (click here) at the extreme southern end of their range, a steady stream of Atlantic puffins, with their unmistakable tuxedo plumage and orange webbed feet, swooped in from the sea, alighting on the granite rocks surrounding this remote island off midcoast Maine.
Many carried in their multicolored beaks the small fish their chicks depend on for survival, and that have been increasingly difficult for puffins to find as waters warm.
Biologists are watching intently to gauge the future of this beloved, bellwether species. Maine’s population, long stressed, took an alarming hit last summer as water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine surged to record highs. As the chunky seabirds struggled to find enough to eat, the number of surviving chicks plummeted to about a quarter, down from about two-thirds in a typical year...
There is inherent problems with any marine species. As the oceans warm the species that call the oceans home will become disoriented due to that temperature change. The ocean waters is where they live and they are very conscious of their environment no different the human experience understands temperature on land.
In the case of shore birds, there can be a drastic change in their food source as the ocean waters warn and fish species migrate. Most of these shorebird species are really hard wired genetically. They don't change much generation to generation. These species are the ones in most danger since their genetics are so limited. They simply don't have the ability to adapt if their food sources crash. That was happening in the Pacific. The most profound loss of birds was stated to be along the Bering Strait. If the fisheries collapse due to species migration the shorebirds are going to be trouble.
By Mia Bennett
The Farne Islands, England (click here) lie at 55 degrees N. Off the coast of Northumberland, they’re not too far from Newcastle, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. I took a boat trip out to the islands a few weeks ago and saw thousands of puffins. The black and white birds were diving, bobbing, and flying with fish in their beaks.
Puffins are usually associated with the Arctic, so I was surprised to see them in the country I’ve called home for the past ten months. Even though I wasn’t really that far north – still eleven degrees south of the Arctic Circle – the presence of puffins made me feel closer to the Arctic than I have since I was in Tromso in January....
