Puffins are beautiful creatures. These puffins were observed off Booth Harbor Bay, Maine. While they spend most of their year dispersed across the north Atlantic Ocean, they gather in colonies during the summer. The iconic orange-red streaked beak is actually a characteristic of their breeding coloration, as most of the year their beaks are opaque grey. You can also observe the markings around their eyes, with patterns which are unique to each individual.
While these may seem typical scenes of “nature” or “wildlife,” the fact that I was able to observe these puffins is anything but “natural.” The colonies that exist off the coast of Maine were hunted and reduced to just a few individuals. It is only thanks to the intervention of biologists in the 1970s that through creativity and dedication managed to relocate puffins from colonies further north. For more information on this effort, look up the Audubon’s Project Puffin.