How (not) to photograph puffins
Today was a nice day in Eastern Newfoundland - and by that I mean the sun was shining in most places and fog was minimal. After 10 days with an ever decreasing cloud ceiling until eventually the clouds sunk below sea level, it was refreshing and thus begging for a road trip. So I decided to head off to Cape Bonavista and check out the lighthouse there. But after checking out the lighthouse, I wandered off to get another vantage point, and noticed these little birds furiously flapping between me and the steep cliff-faced island opposite - puffins!
I must confess, I had no inkling puffins were nesting this close to Cape Bonavista because if I had, I might have come up earlier in the season when there was a greater chance of seeing more of them nesting on the island (a scant 20m or so from the mainland). I may not be a big birding fanatic, but I do have a soft spot for puffins because Enid Blyton’s book, “The Secret Island” which tickled my sense of adventure as a wee child, features puffins quite prominently.
Anyay, I was also most relieved I recognised the puffins immediately as my previous experience in Iceland was bit of a non event where I spent most of my time looking for moderate-sized birds waddling up and down the steep cliffs (legacy of to many trips to Antarctica…) before realising at the last minute as the boat fired up engines and departed that the tiny little birds flapping furious between me and the rocky island were the puffins…
However, while the penguins of Antarctica are very easy to photograph (unless ‘flying’ underwater), the puffins are not at all easy to photograph and I ended up with a collection of very blurred photographs instead. Why did my medium-high end digital camera fail to capture good photos? Well, follow the photo essay below (which, if its of any help to you, does culminate in a couple of small web-worthy images of puffins…).
To start with, the puffins have a lot more predators to contend with than their south polar counterparts, and they have this thing called ’soil’ developed - so they tend to nest in burrows dug into the soil. Must be nice on those nasty weather days to be able to protected from the worst of the elements, unlike the poor penguins which just hunker down on a pile of pebbles, back to the wind… It also provides a fantastic way to hide from eager photographers. But I digress.
First, you have to be lucky to see a puffin emerge from its burrow. For some reason, they seemed to only emerge in little bursts and I could go for long minutes without seeing a single puffin and then there would be about 10 for a single hearbeat. This inconsistent timing of their appearance completely foiled me capturing them with the video feature of my camera, hence today, we are stuck with stills:
Upon emerging from its burrow, the puffin spends approximately one nanosecond checking the area for predators before dropping like a stone at 453, 721 km/hr off the cliff…
…. and rushes out to sea…
…. to grab some fish (and there were a lot of puffins with fish in their beaks!)….
…and then returns to their nest to make a perfectly ugly but very exact landing…
…completely inside its burrow.
Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you - these are puffin burrows, but no puffins.
So. Puffins flap their wings furiously, fly quite fast, don’t glide and thus make it outrageously difficult to capture them on camera, even with my camera set for high speed photography (which admittedly, I am not in the slightest bit professional at doing).
In other words, I can offer no advice for the amateur photographer, like myself, wishing to take some pictures of puffins, except may luck be on your side!
However, as promised, I did managed to capture some images which are not going to be appearing in any editions of National Geographic soon of penguins in flight…
Must have just been furiously panning and snapping away and got this shot of a penguin side on
And how about this… got one shot of a penguin with a fish in its mouth and didn’t blur it too much! Maybe the fish slowed it down ever so slightly and I was better able to match speed with my camera panning?!
One last one with a fish in its beak:
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