How many puffins are present in this picture? For the answer, click HERE.

How many puffin decoys can you find? To see how many there are, click HERE.

The puffin cam rotates between views on a puffin loafing area, the Common Tern colony, and an underground burrow cam. The best viewing time is between 10am and 5pm EDT. If your image is blurry or you can’t see a puffin, please check back later. You can also see “best of the puffin cam from 2006” by clicking on http://www.projectpuffin.org/puffin-cam-best.html and video clips at http://www.projectpuffin.org/movies.

Puffin Cam is sponsored by BARBARA'S BAKERY, home of the deliciously crunchy, high-fiber PUFFINS cereal & snack bars.

Thanks for visiting! 

To view the previous season's "Best of the Puffin Cam" site, please click HERE.

Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge—May 25, 2007

The seabird cameras on Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge went live to the Internet today--providing real time views of puffins, terns, guillemots, razorbills, murres, eiders and other Maine coast seabirds.

There are two cameras positioned in seabird habitat. The primary Puffin Cam sits on a popular puffin roosting ledge where puffins spend time socializing among wooden decoys. From this location, the camera pivots nearly 360 degrees to show puffin nesting habitat under huge granite boulders. The second camera sits in the center of the island where viewers can see nesting Arctic and Common Terns.

Puffins begin laying eggs in early May and these begin hatching in mid June. After an incubation period of about six weeks, the tiny ‘puffling’ will hatch and parents will then spend the next six weeks carrying food back to the nest and tending the chick.

NEW! -- Burrow Cam

This 4th of July, Audubon staff placed a tiny camera into the underground burrow of puffins nesting in burrow five at Seal Island.  Several feet under piles of rounded granite boulders, the fluffy puffin chick can be seen in its otherwise secretive world.  The underground camera is permitting observers to view never before seen details of puffin life. Audubon staff are surprised, for example, about the extent of interaction between the adults and the chicks.  Previously, adult puffins were thought to primarily deliver fish to the growing chick, but the burrow cam reveals that chicks are actually tended much of the day by adults.  The camera also reveals the types of food delivered to the chick. This week staff were surprised to see an Atlantic Saury delivered to the 5 inch long chick.  The fish was longer than the chick, but it was easily swallowed- quickly followed by a butterfish- a silver-dollar sized fish! Atlantic Saury are warm water fish that are showing up in the diet of puffins and terns at most of Audubon’s seabird islands this summer. This was the first ever record of an Atlantic Saury fed to a puffin.

Seal Island is part of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge (provide a link). It is located 20 miles south of Rockland, ME. The camera is scheduled to be in place each year from late May through mid September when most of the seabird will have headed back to their winter homes on the open ocean. Be sure to check in every year!

Residents and visitors to the Maine coast can see the live video on a large screen and operate the cameras at the Project Puffin Visitor Center, located at 311 Main Street in Rockland, Maine. The center is open daily from 10AM to 5PM from June 1st until October 31st.

Video cameras/technical support provided by:

Visit other nesting birds via the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Nest Box Cams web site:

About Project Puffin: The National Audubon Society started Project Puffin 33 years ago. The program has restored colonies of Atlantic Puffins to Eastern Egg Rock and Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge by translocating nearly 2000 puffin chicks from Newfoundland. Project Puffin began in 1973 in an effort to learn how to restore puffins to historic nesting islands in the Gulf of Maine. Techniques developed by the Project are now used worldwide, helping more than 40 other seabird species. Audubon is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in positive conservation experiences.     By adopting a Puffin, you contribute to insuring the future of Puffins on Maine's Coast...Now you can do it online! For more information on adoptions, visit our Puffin Adoption Center.     Sponsors of Project Puffin: CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS (PDF FILE)

Atlantic Puffin walking on rocks

View of Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge (by S. Walker)

Matt places the burrow cam into puffin burrow 5 (by Steve Kress)

One week old puffin chick (by Steve Kress)

Atlantic Puffin (by Steve Kress)

Common Term with Herring (by Scott Hall)

Common Eider (by the Puffin Cam)

Black Guillemot (by Bill Scholtz)

Common Tern Chick (by Bill Scholtz)