Puffins, terns work ocean on cruise off Petit Manan

Back in July, I received an invitation to go on an evening cruise on the Friendship V, the popular Bar Harbor whale-watching boat, to Petit Manan Island. I had gone to that island often when I was teaching field ornithology. I was thrilled to go there again.

The invitation was from a group named the Friends of Maine Seabird Islands, a nonprofit organization, and a friends group that supports the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

The cruise was wonderful. More than 100 people went, and all were thrilled. The puffins, of course, were the stars. We saw them flying with small silvery fish in their bills, taking food to their young in burrows on the island.

We saw big flocks of puffins sitting on the water, too. Puffins go underwater from a sitting position on the surface to catch fish, as loons do. They don’t dive from the air, as kingfishers do.

Another star was the Arctic tern. Terns are small, graceful relatives of gulls. The Arctic tern is famous as a world traveler.

After nesting, it migrates from Maine to the Arctic and then down past Europe and Africa to arrive at Antarctica in their summer – our winter. The terns then fly up the South Atlantic Ocean past South America and the West Indies, north past the eastern United States to Maine in our spring.

They live in an eternal spring and summer. What could be better? There are enormous schools of small fish and krill, small shrimplike crustaceans, in spring and summer at each pole. It was a treat to see so many Arctic terns and to imagine their 22,000-mile journey up and down the globe. Terns dive from the air, as kingfishers do.

We saw many other species, too: common terns, gannets, guillemots and a parasitic jaeger. Jaeger means hunter. This species harasses gulls until they cough up their food. Then the jaeger eats its secondhand (secondbill?) meal.

I just joined the Friends of Maine Seabird Islands. Members help protect seabirds like these, especially on Maine’s nesting islands. Seabirds face many hazards there. You can join and volunteer, too. Visit www.maineseabirds.org or write Friends of Maine Seabird Islands, P.O. Box 232, Rockport, ME 04856, or call 236-6970.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.