I took this image on Machias Seal Island, a twenty-two square kilometer rock with a lighthouse on it. This island is an hour south of Grand Menan Island, New Brunswick, and it is home to thousands of nesting Atlantic puffins, razor-billed auks, common murres, as well as Arctic and Common terns.
Machias Seal Island is typically quite foggy. In fact when our boatload of bird photographers arrived, a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter was taking off after being stranded for two days due to fog. However as though by magic, during my hour of photography, the clouds broke apart over the center of the island and brought a bit of sunlight on these clever looking birds, and how beautiful they look under a blue sky.
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Here is another single puffin I photographed from inside the bird blinds on Machias Seal Island.
Notice the dimmer light than the other single puffin image I posted. The clouds were only beginning to open up.
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The largest colony of Northern Gannets in North America is on Cape St. Mary peninsula of the Avalon portion of Newfoundland, the sector with St. John's on it. The Cape St. Mary Ecological Preserve is home to several species of pelagic birds that nest on the banks of this southern tip of Newfoundland. Among those species is the Northern Gannet. In fact, more than 10,000 breeding pairs nest here.
I photographed this gannet from the edge of the cliffs in the evening hours as the setting sun cast its light on the bird. Dozens of these creatures with nearly 4-foot wingspans flew above my head close enough to touch them if I were to be so foolish to try. The hardest part of photographing them was not having them come too close to the lens or have several birds obscuring the single bird I was aiming at.
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I took this image on Machias Seal Island on the same day I got the images of the puffins. These birds are easy to spot from a distance because of the rectangular shapes of their bills.
Machias is home primarily to common murres, razorbills, and puffins, and the species are all over the place and they often intermingle. Getting a shot of just one of those species takes a little effort and a little luck.
I like the simple contrast of the simple four colors in this image. (I am not considering the yellow moss on the face of the rock.)
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This is the second of the puffin species that nests on the coasts of the North Pacific. The Horned Puffin takes its name from the point that extends from each of its eyes, and this characteristic distinguishes it (as well as the bill) from the Atlantic Puffin. (See some examples way down in my stream.) I found this bird on Gull Island off the coast of Homer while on a little water taxi.
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