SEVEN-ACRE Eastern Egg Rock sits in the middle of the entrance to Muscongus Bay. No more than a patch of boulders and grass, it lies in an area full of unmarked ledges. Plan to be nowhere near it when the fog closes in. In sunlight, however, this is a fascinating island to sail around. Here Cornell University ornithologist Stephen Kress and the National Audubon Society have reestablished a colony of puffins. Project Puffin has created the most southerly nesting ground for these strange and wonderful birds, with their colorful beaks and comical postures.

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Puffins and terns were both here before the turn of the century. Terns were hunted for the millinery trade and puffins were eaten. Farmers collected their eggs from outlying islands as a cash crop for additional income. By 1900, both species were gone, replaced by aggressive herring gulls.
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To nest, puffins need tumbled rock to provide burrows and drainage. They need good fishing grounds nearby, and they must be free of mammalian predators. Eastern Egg Rock, far out in the bay, has no mammals, not even a mouse, so it is ideal. In the 1970s, researchers laboriously dug burrows by hand for puffin chicks transported from Newfoundland. Their efforts have been highly successful. Sixteen pairs of puffins return to Eastern Egg Rock each spring, and they have been joined by more than 1,000 pairs of terns, with fifty pairs each of the rarer arctic and roseate terns.
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You may be lucky enough to see puffins near Eastern Egg Rock during June and July, but the population is much larger on Matinicus Rock farther east. For the best view of puffins, plan a journey to lonely Machias Seal Island, way Down East, where, hidden in a blind, you can observe puffins, terns, and razor-billed auks at close range. Please do not go ashore on Eastern Egg Rock.INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.

Maine Birding: more puffin information and photos