Their feathers were used for pillow stuffing, their skins for parkas. Today, puffins have made a hard-won comeback. At the state's Matinicus Rock and Machias Seal Island, habitat protection by wardens and lighthouse keepers helped the birds stage a slow recovery. It isn't known exactly where they spend the nine months away from Maine, but wildlife biologists believe they scatter to the northern Atlantic. Pass the binoculars .
Shearwaters spend most of their lives at sea, coming to land only to breed a few months a year.
As the birds glided by, Fran, our sons and I passed our trusty birding guides back and forth for confirmation, along with a pair of rubber-coated Bushnell Natureview binoculars, a good choice for beginners. The rating is 8 x 42, which means the bird will appear eight times closer than it is. The lens diameter is 42 millimeters. Serious birders keep a list of their sightings in a journal, and I added the shorebirds to the rolls, noting their sex, approximate age and where I saw them. As we neared Machias Seal Island after about 90 minutes at sea, Barna's son, John, ferried us in motorboats to a series of rocks, carpeted with slippery brown sea grass and raked by crashing waves.