Protection Island and its Auklets

Its early summer and with all the good weather in the Pacific Northwest, I have been searching for a new location to take photographs of birds. My requirements were not just to find a new location but to check off new species that I haven’t photographed before.  The spring migration was over and many of the new birds that I have photographed this year have moved on to their nesting locations. Thanks to Puget Sound Express and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center which jointly produces the Protection Island Puffin Cruise, I had the opportunity photograph new species and view Protection Island.

Protection Island is an island within the Strait of Juan de Fuca, north of Discovery Bay. The island is federally protected National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is home to one hundred marine bird species, including the largest colony of rhinoceros auklets in the world. The island also contains two nesting colonies of the tufted puffin. Every summer this island comes alive with nesting and breeding flyaway populations along with my favorites the rhinoceros auklets and tufted puffins, there are also pigeon guillemots, gulls, cormorants, and oystercatchers.

Cruising around the island I was amazed at how many gulls, pigeon guillemots, rhinoceros auklets and puffins that was in the area. The people running the cruise made no guarantees to see any particular species of birds, however there wasn’t a shortage of wildlife to photograph and you had optimal chances to get good shots. The puffins were very photogenic and almost posed for pictures while the rhinoceros auklets are a bit camera shy. This is not to say that you couldn’t get the prize shot, you just had to try a bit more.

My primary focus was the tufted puffin. The puffin is abundant medium size seabird in the auklet family. They spend life out at sea and only come to land for breeding and nesting. The tufted puffin can be easily recognized by its thick red bill and yellow tufts, which are their most distinctive feature and namesake doing breeding season.  Rhinoceros Auklet was also a species of focus for me. The Rhinoceros Auklet is a seabird and a close relative of the puffins. It a bird of coastlines and the open sea, and is named for the vertical white plate at the base of its bill. This horn is present only on breeding adults. It feeds on small fish and nests on Protection Island.

To view more pictures of seabirds from protection island click here.