Bird Watching Cruise – 7-5-15 – Smith Island Puffins

On our final Bird Cruise for the season we went to Smith Island. Smith Island is the only place left in the San Juan Islands where the elusive Tufted Puffins nest and raise their young. It is a remote island and offers the birds an isolated nesting spot. Tufted Puffins usually have the same mate every year and return to the same nesting burrow. Here in the sandstone bluffs of Smith Island they raise their one chick in deep burrows. Both parents take care of the chick and spend their days carrying fish back to the burrow. Within a few short weeks, the chick will leave the nest and start foraging for itself. The thick kelp beds here provide habitat for the small fish eaten by the puffins. By late summer, the puffins will head out to the open ocean where they will spend their winter.

In previous years, Smith Island has always been a place to go and maybe see a couple of puffins. With this nesting colony becoming firmly established, we see puffins on every trip. There were also many other species of birds seen on this trip. There are certain islands where we always see the colorful Harlequin Ducks and Black Oystercatchers. Rhinocerous Auklets, Pigeon Guillemots, Common Murres, and Marbled Murrelets are other Auk species that we see.

(Photo Credit to Jim Bachman). Jim has been coming out with us on nearly every bird cruise for the last three years. (When Jim is on the boat, I don’t even take my camera out of its case) He has always generously shared his beautiful photos with us.)

Species list for this trip:

Harlequin Ducks

Great Blue heron

Green Heron

Double-crested Cormorant

Pelagic Cormorant

Turkey Vulture

Bald Eagles

Black Oystercatcher

Bonaparte’s Gull

Heerman’s Gull

Western Gull

Glaucous Wing Gull

California Gull

Caspian Tern

Common Murre

Pigeon Guillemot

Marbled Murrelet

Rhinocerous Auklet

Tufted Puffin

Belted Kingfisher

Tree Swallow

Violet-Green Swallow