Atlas of Kinship
Many species of seabirds have nested on islands across the Gulf of Maine for millennia, winging back to the same salt-soaked, rocky outcrops to reunite…
Placeholder – Work in Progress
4 Puffins Wood Inlay (“Rakudo”)
This wood inlay containing all four species of puffins was crafted by legendary world champion wood carver Haruo Uchiyama using a centuries old method called…
A Few Photos from the Field
The eastern Aleutian Islands of Alaska contain some of the largest puffin colonies in the world, most of which are found on remote islands protected…
Ajay Varma
Atlantic Puffin carrying grass
This is a puffin on Eastern Egg Rock off the coast of Maine, stretching its wings and carrying some pieces of old dried up grass.…
Steve Kress
Atlantic Puffin greeting a wooden decoy
This puffin appears to be talking to the painted wooden decoy in this photo taken in the 1970s on Eastern Egg Rock, off the coast…
Steve Kress
The Great Auk
Tim Birkhead’s The Great Auk (2025) is a richly layered natural-history narrative that reconstructs the life, extinction, and legacy of the flightless Great Auk (Pinguinus…
An excerpt from The Great Auk
“Even though the great auk itself no longer exists, its stuffed skins, empty eggshells and disarticulated bones continue to exert a powerful magic. Like the relics of saints, they are talismanic, objects of awe – pieces of the true auk – imbuing those that own them with an uncanny power. The great auk is a bird with a past, a present and, remarkably, a future. Why else would I be writing this book? “
“Just 75 eggs and 78 skins survive, and their rarity means that both museums and private collectors set great store by them. For almost two centuries, these fragments of a life once lived have been avidly sought and bought, often for exorbitant sums. The acquisition of great auk relics is, for some, an all-absorbing – and often self-destructive – obsession.”
“It is May 2017, and I am chatting on the phone to a retired miner and former egg-collector. In his strong South Yorkshire accent, he casually tells me that a mate of his is repairing a great auk egg. I’m stunned. With so few known eggs of this vanished, revered bird, it seemed extraordinary that not far away – and in an area of social deprivation made famous by the film Kes – such an egg exists. Amazed and intrigued, I ask who it is. My ex-miner tells me his mate’s name, and agrees to introduce me. A few days later I go to his house to meet him. Once a miner too, and now a night watchman in the local steelworks, Graham Axon’s hobby is creating replica eggs and repairing real ones.”
“I ask where the egg had come from, but Graham is evasive; ‘I can’t tell you,’ he says. I am not surprised, for everything to do with great auk eggs is cloaked in mystery and intrigue, so I don’t persist. When Graham says that the now completely restored egg has gone back to its owner my heart sinks. But he tells me that he has recorded his repair in photographs on his phone. We go into the shed in his garden, where Graham sits at his workbench and pulls out his mobile phone. In more detail than I had dared to hope, he reveals the entire process, from the arrival of the damaged egg, through its dismantling and the careful and seemingly miraculous reassembly of the 3 6 separate pieces. In a marvellous reversal of the fate of most eggs, Graham was able to put Humpty together again. The finished article is exquisite, and I feel sure that its owner, whoever it is, must be delighted.”
“There was so much I wanted to know: who is the owner? How did they get the egg? How much had they paid to acquire it? How much had Graham been paid for his extraordinary repair work?”
Seabirds as Sentinels
Seabirds as Sentinels (2026), by writer and scientist Eric Wagner, explores how seabirds—especially tufted puffins and rhinoceros auklets— can reveal the changing health of marine…
An excerpt from “Seabirds as Sentinels”
on catching a Rhinoceros Auklet at night
“The last hint of light leaves. Soon the sky will be dark enough for the auklets, who are themselves waiting so they can fly in without any of the island’s several bald eagles attacking them. Sometimes I see the auklets in the evening, gathering by the dozens, by the hundreds, flying in restless circuits over the water. Their relationship with the island is a study in this difficult balance: to be pulled to it, to hold themselves away from it. “
“Now there is. a heavy whirrrr of wingbeats. “Here they come!” Scott calls out from below. Another whirrrr, and another, one more. The birds sound like tiny helicopters. One whirrs near, arriving at some point only a few yards from me. It seems to stall in the air so it can land, although to say “land” might give it too much credit. Branches snap! as the bird drops into the willows and salmonberry, fighting through before tumbling to the ground and skulking to its burrow. It must have entered; from within I can hear a chick start to peep. Both parents bring fish for their chick, although not like a robin does, stuffing food into a waiting mouth. Instead, once inside a burrow, the parent drops all its fish at the chick’s feet so the chick can dine at its leisure. Fish that are too big for the chick’s small bill it ignores or stomps into the dirt.”
“I settle on my haunches. That last auklet sounded close enough to pursue, but this is not a place for blind lunges. The slope here is steep, the dirt crumbly, the willow branches thick and dry, rough and sharp.”
“More birds fly in. They give the island a living, breathing quality. In the morning, it breathes the birds out, and they all fly away. At night, it breathes them back in, inhales them, and they disappear into their burrows. At last I hear an auklet drop into the bushes right behind-me, hear the light thud as it hits the ground, the faint scritch as it scuttles to its home. When the bird sounds like I could reach out and touch it, I whirl and turn on’ my headlamp, catching it in the beam. The auklet freezes, shocked and erect. A mess of fish dangles from its bill. We stare at each other, the two of us. Before I can react the auklet flings its fish to the ground and leaps at my headlamp, which it takes to be the moon, which means the safety of open sky. It smacks into my face, scrabbles around my neck with its sharp claws and then over my shoulder, hurtling off me to scamper into the dark.”
Project Puffin
“Project Puffin is the inspiring story of how a beloved seabird was restored to long-abandoned nesting colonies off the Maine coast. As a young ornithology…
An excerpt from Project Puffin
“There are many bright signals that give us cause for hope that an ethic for stewardship is emerging and will eventually prevail. I find it heartening that, after a hundred-year absence, puffins are not only back in Maine but have passed the thousand-pair mark. This success along with the proliferation of our methods [for seabird restoration] worldwide, gives me confidence that humans have the capacity to expand the habitat occupied by wildlife rather than just documenting contracting ranges, loss of nesting colonies and eventual extinctions. This is a heartening support for believing that people can develop a conservation ethic for saving life on earth. “
“A good place to start thinking about stewardship is to reject the idea of the “balance of nature.” This enduring myth suggests that nature has purpose, that each species has a rightful place, and that, when left alone, “balance” will decide which species survive and which disappear.”
“In contrast, a belief in active stewardship leads to rejecting the balance of nature paradigm, replacing it with the idea that each species is doing its best to survive, not because it is part of a great plan, but because it simply can. Bill Drury believed that the only constants in nature were change and chance. Everything changes and chance events usually determine outcomes.”
“Chance events led me to Machias Seal with Mary Majka, then to Hog Island, where I stumbled on Ralph Palmer’s history of Egg Rock puffins. And it is stewardship that brought the puffins back to Egg Rock. In a world where change is the driving certainty, will stewardship prove sufficient to keep the puffin on Egg Rock? The idea of sustainability is not a steady-state balance. Not with so many humans pulling on the marine food web in so many directions. A middle-of-the-food-chain bird such as the puffin needs friends to give it time to adapt to change.”
“Forces beyond Eastern Egg Rock will likely someday change the coast sufficiently to displace many of the birds that nest there today. We can only guess what those forces might be or when they might happen, but in the meantime active stewardship is our best hope for keeping the puffins on Egg Rock. Humility should guide stewardship as we remind ourselves that every species is connected to dozens of other sea animals large and microscopic and that people are affecting life everywhere on earth in ways that we are only beginning to understand. “
“I picked the puffin for my life pursuit more than forty years ago because it captured my imagination—just as it continues to lure thousands aboard puffin-watching tours along the Maine coast. Although there are still more puffins on T-shirts and trinkets than on nesting islands, rare seabirds are coming back because we have done some of the right things with ample patience and perseverance. Saving puffins means protecting nesting habitat and saving their forage fish and the entire food web that supports the fish. It also means protecting oceans from pollution and rapid climate change, allowing for species to adapt to inevitable changes.”
Storm-battered puffins nursed back to health
Two storm battered puffins are being nursed back to health after being found exhausted on beaches in Cornwall, England. The birds were brought to Rosemullion Veterinary Practice in Falmouth after Storm Chandra, where vets found them weak, dehydrated and underweight but with no visible injuries. Clinical director Helena Wilkes said it was the first time the practice had treated puffins, calling it highly unusual and likely linked to recent severe weather. The pair, named Pedro and Pickle, are being rehabilitated with specialist care and nutrition before being safely released back into the wild. [2026,0:38 min]