MATINICUS ROCK – A robotic camera on Matinicus Rock is now beaming live streaming video of the state’s largest colony of Atlantic puffins and razorbills.

To view Maine Audubon’s Project Puffin seabird camera on Matinicus Rock, located 22 miles south of Rockland, click on www.projectpuffin.org.

The robotic camera was funded by grants from MBNA Foundation and the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. The video signal is beamed by microwave to Rockland, where it is linked to an Internet connection at the site of the future Project Puffin Visitor Center.

When the center opens, visitors will be able to operate the camera to pan in all directions, and to zoom in and out for closer views. The camera is an invention of Daniel Zatz of SeeMore Wildlife Systems of Homer, Alaska.

The camera, which operates from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., is now set to move every two minutes on an automatic tour of 20 preset locations that show seabird habitat on Matinicus Rock. The tour includes the murre attraction program, which is using decoys to encourage common murres to nest on the island. The tour focuses on several locations where puffins may be seen on their “loafing ledges” as well as views of the Matinicus Rock lighthouse.

The best hours for seabird viewing are morning and early afternoon. Puffins typically spend their afternoons at sea but return in the evening before going under the boulders to sleep.

The tour also includes two minutes of observation within an underground puffin burrow. Using infrared lighting, viewers will be able to see a growing chick and its parents. This is the first underground video of nesting puffins to be shown on the Internet.

Matinicus Rock is Audubon’s first protected seabird nesting colony.

Protection of the puffin, once hunted for its plumes, started in 1901, when only one nesting pair of puffins remained. Today, more than 200 pairs nest at the island. Matinicus Rock is also home to more than 230 pairs of razorbills and about 1,000 pairs of Arctic terns.