Atlantic Puffin

Seeing a puffin in Newfoundland is like seeing large ladies in pink sweat pants at Walmart; they are everywhere. However, getting close enough to take a good pic is very tricky, and requires ninja skills. One of our innkeepers was a Canadian National Parks ranger, and he relayed this story to us: Several weeks out of the year, he visits an island in Witless Bay to band puffins. The trick is to find a deceased puffin (black gulls like to capture them and disembowel them from the belly in.) You then take this dried carcass, wrap it over your hand, and manipulate the poor creature like a puppet with a tasty bit of fish in it's mouth. In this manner you enter your full arm length into a puffin den, which is about a 3 foot long tunnel in the dirt. Baby puffins are then seduced out into the open, where they are banded and released. This puffin pic relied on no such shenanagans, just patience and good luck.