Maine Puffins
A Guide to Photographing Puffins in Maine
The Divine Clown
Introduction
I recently returned from a wonderful week in Maine where I was able to spend a few days photographing Atlantic Puffins off the coast of Maine. Photographing Puffins has been on my bucket list for quite some time and I was thrilled to be able to spend two days on the water photographing them in their natural habitat. In this blog post, i’ll share some history of puffins in this areas and the efforts to bring them back. I’ll also share some locations and resources to help plan your own puffin adventures as well as some helpful tips on what camera equipment and settings where most helpful.
Project Puffin - Restoring Puffins in Maine
Atlantic Puffins historically occupied the coastal “Downeast” Maine islands every summer where they used these rocky outposts as nesting grounds for rearing their young. Early settlers in these areas would hunt puffins for their feathers, eggs and meat. By the late 1880’s, they were mostly extinct from this area. In 1973, The National Audubon Society started project puffin, an initiative to learn how to restore the Puffin to their native breeding grounds. Eastern Egg Rock was the first location that the project attempted to repopulate. Between 1973 and 1986 close to one thousand puffins were transplanted from Great Island, Newfoundland to Eastern Egg Rock. These puffin were raised and fledged to sea. By 1977 these puffin began returning back to Eastern Egg Rock to breed and the project was deemed a success. This project has since expanded to other islands within Maine and has served as a model, for not just reintroducing puffin, but also other seabirds which have suffered populations declines. If you’d like to learn more about this amazing initiative and even donate, i’ve included a link in the resources section below.
Top 3 Locations to see Puffins in Maine
There are now seven or eight islands in Maine which have breeding colonies of puffins, but if you’re reading this article, you’re probably wondering where are the best locations. Below i’ll share the top three locations based upon both my experience and time spent researching prior to my trip. The best time of year for seeing puffins in from Mid-May through Mid-August while they are nesting and rearing their young (called pufflings). June and July are generally the best months.
Machias Seal Island
Even though I didn’t make it here, Machias Seal Island is probably the best location for puffin photography in Maine. There are two primary reasons that make Machias Seal Island best:
Machias Seal Island has one of the larger colonies of puffins.
It is the only location where you are able to go onto the island to photograph puffins from photo blinds which are only feet away from active nesting sites.
As a photographer, it is the second of the reasons which make this location ideal, but there’s a huge challenge. The island significantly limits the number of visitors per day (which is a good thing for the birds) and there is only one company, Bold Coast Charters, that is authorized to bring people to the island. Every January, Bold Coast opens up their reservation system and thousands of people flood online to try to get a ticket to be able to spend a few hours in one of these blinds. I was online in January as well, trying to land my slot, but sadly was to unable to secure a ticket. This is an experience which will remain on my bucket list, and I will be trying again in the future.
If you happen to be a lucky one to get a ticket, you will leave from a small port in the town of Cutler Maine. Below is a map of the island for reference:
Eastern Egg Rock
The second locations is Eastern Egg Rock island. As mentioned above this was the original site of the puffin reintroduction and has one of the largest colonies in the Gulf of Maine. Because of its locations, this is also the area where most folks will go to see puffin. The project puffin site lists a number of boat tours. This is a great options for folks who want to go spend an hour snapping pictures of puffins or have a desire to simply see a puffin. There are a number of daily tours which leave from the more touristed areas so access for folks spending a vacation week in Maine are numerous and convenient. For Photographers, these options may work, but realize that your typically only get about 30-45 minutes circling the island and you’ll be on a larger boat with numerous other people. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re lugging around large telephoto lenses and monopods it could be a bit of a challenge.
Below i’ve included a map of Eastern Egg Rock:
Petit Manan Island
Petit Manan Island is part of the Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge spans more than 250 miles of rugged Maine coast. This was the location that I choose to spend my time in Maine. I’ve written before about my love of photographing at National Wildlife Refuges and this one was no different. For this trip we chartered a private boat for two mornings to take us out to Petit Manan Island and we spent about two hours photographing puffins.
Below is a map to Petit Manan Island:
Gallery from Petit Manan Island
Where to Stay
We stayed 4 nights in the small, lovely town of Milbridge Maine at the mouth of the Narraguagus River. This is the town where Robertson Sea Tours departs from and proved to be a great little area for the days we were there. It’s a little off the beaten path, which we generally prefer, but close enough to Acadia National Park and other sites to be able to make easy day trips. In fact, we actually spent a few evenings at Cadillac Mountain in Acadia photographing sunset.
Below is a map of the area and i’ve included a VRBO link of rentals in the resources below. I also need to mention that apart from the puffins, a highlight of this area is Chipman’s Wharf. If you’re a devotee of Lobster, this will be your shrine!
Gear and Tips for Photographing Puffins.
Before I go into this section, I have to note that this was really my first time photographing puffins and only my second time photographing from a boat in the open ocean. Having said that I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this. Even though I had a conversation with Captain Robertson prior to arriving in Maine, I didn’t really know how close we’d be to the puffins; how the seas would affect shooting; would I need a tripod/monopod, etc. I share that, because I really brought probably more than I needed, but i’m glad I did.
Gear
I posted the below picture on my social media accounts before leaving. Below is a list of what I brought with me:
Gear Recommendations
In hindsight, I definitely brought more gear than I needed (that’s my normal M.O.). If you’re planning to go on a boat to photograph puffins below are some suggestions:
Two Bodies - If you have two camera bodies, use them both. It was incredibly useful having my 400mm and 800m lenses attached to separate bodies that I could just swap as needed.
Long Lens - I don’t think you’ll find a long enough lens. I don’t own the 800mm lens(still waiting on my 600mm f/4 to be delivered), I rented it for the week and still found that I wasn’t always filling the frame. You’re confined to a boat so you can’t really move to get closer. This lens was excellent for the photos of the puffins on rocks and floating at sea.
Skip the Tripod - I used both the tripod and monopod and found that the monopod and hand held were just easier on the boat. I would generally always recommend support for long lens, but the tripod and gimbal were just too difficult (more on why below).
Shorter is better for BIF - The 800mm was great for birds that were stationary, however for puffins in flight it was too much. This wasn’t because it was too much lens, but mainly because you’re on a moving boat in 1-2 foot seas trying to track a bird. Birds are hard enough to track in flight at 800mm when you’re on a stationary platform, but when the boat rolls over waves it’s almost impossible to keep the subject in frame. My best bird in flight photos were taken with my 400mm because they were easier to track.
Forget the TC’s - as I mentioned above, 800mm was a challenge due to the rocking of the boat. I didn’t even attempt to put a teleconverter on because I felt it would have been unusable.
Tips for Puffin Photography
Below are a handful a tips that will hopefully help you take great puffin pics.
Auto Area AF - I’m a Nikon shooter and won’t get into tons of technical camera settings; but this is one of the few cases where I used Auto Area AF and had it work really well (I generally use this for BIF photography already). Auto Area AF basically removes the focus points and allows the camera to determine the subject. I still use Animal Eye AF subject detections, but I found the Z9 did a great job of acquiring the puffins and nailing focus with this setting. Other modern mirrorless camera brands have similar settings that may be called something different so reference your manuals.
Faster Shutter Speeds - I’ve written before about my general desire to start with faster speeds then dial down to the slowest speed to freeze (or create the effect i’m looking for) action. There’s a correlation between focal length and shutter speeds, so shooting with an 800mm lens, I always knew i’d be shooting faster speeds. What I didn’t know going in was how the motion of the boat would affect this. I have very few photos shot with the 800mm lens that are slower than 1/1000th and most are in the 1/2000th range. That’s probably faster than I’d need if was on firm land, but was needed to freeze shots on the boat.
Shoot bursts and bring cards - I do this as a normal course of action, you’ll rarely find my cameras shooting less than 20 frames per second. The first morning out, I shot over 15,000 frames between the two bodies and filled 6 memory cards. Was this excessive? Probably, but because it was my first time doing this I was trying to dial in settings to freeze images and get my exposures right on the Puffins. Out of those 15,000 frames I purged the keepers to less than 500. I probably spent more time purging photos than I did photographing from the boat, but I didn’t want to miss any shots that first day. I’m not necessarily suggestion you take 15,000 photos, but I almost always find that this practice allows me to get unique shots that I don’t always see in the moment. Plus, it’s only memory.
Visualize shots - This isn’t really technical tip, but an important one. It’s really easy to get caught up in the moment and just fire away shots without thinking much (see 15,000 photos above); but one thing I find that i’m doing more and more is to really look around a little bit before I take any photo and think through what shots i’d like to take. For example, a great benefit of a small boat is that I can get fairly low to the water line and more eye level with the puffins as they float. This created opportunities to see them rolling over the waves and smoothing out the background like the one image above. Another example is that there were very cool rock formations and grasses on Petit Manan Island that I thought would create great ledges for photos (as the one below). The main point is that spending a little time up front imagining what we want to see, more often than not leads to something similar happening for real and we can be prepared when that moment happens.
Conclusion
Overall, I had a great couple days with these birds. It’s an experience I will cherish for a long time and I have a feeling that I will be taking future trips to photograph these amazing creatures. Also, If you’re looking for a beautiful, rugged and less crowded area of Maine to visit, I was completely blown away by the entire area from Milbridge all the way to Lubec in the very North East corner of the state.