Did you know that Atlantic Puffins fly underwater? They aren’t the most elegant or acrobatic of fliers in the air. They seem to have trouble getting airborne on their small stiff wings, and pretty much fly in straight lines. But underwater, those same wings give them the power and maneuverability they need to chase and catch fish.
My son Russell and I went to Maine this past July to try to film puffins both above and below water, and had a fun time doing it. We hired a lobster boat, and went out to Petit Manan Island, one of their nesting sites. As puffins came and went from the island, and rafted up to rest in the water around the island between hunting for fish to feed their chicks, we took our chances to capture our footage. Russell even went in the water and snorkeled with the puffins to get some underwater shots. You can watch the video we made as part of our series Wild Birds Revealed for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on their YouTube channel. In this video series, we not only reveal interesting aspects of bird behavior, but we also reveal how we got the shots. In this case it included Russell donning a puffin decoy on his head to help him approach the puffins. Check out the video HERE to see how he did! I hope you enjoy it.
I’ve selected a few of my favorite stills from the project for you below. It was fantastic to spend some time with these charismatic little seabirds who were once down to a few individuals on the Maine islands, but now number in the thousands due to successful conservation efforts! If you ever have a chance to go watch them yourself, I encourage you to do it!
The Puffin Run
In order to help them get enough speed up to get airborne, Atlantic Puffins have to get a running start. They start flapping their wings against the water, and run along the surface with the orange webbed feet flailing until they finally get up into the air. I knew that the flying spray and footprints left in the water would make for a fun action shot, so I kept watching for a puffin that was about to take off perpendicular to our bouncing lobster boat. It was a beautiful sunny morning with the water taking on the blue of the sky when I got my chance and captured this shot.