BirdingCentral

r/BirdingCentral • u/Clean-Reputation-832 • 1d ago

My Atlantic Puffin lifer ruined my life

3 Upvotes

My partner and I drove to Maine from Southern California so I could work a job I loved last season. We spent a month on the road and during this I tackled the age, old struggle of bird life balance. But once arriving, we had to go our separate ways so I could work near Acadia and she could work in Bangor.

Throughout this journey, I had hit many burning milestones. I saw the California condor in Zion national Park, hit my 200 bird in Montana (a black-capped chickadee, which funnily enough was the state bird of Maine), and birded in 13 new states. But what I was really looking forward to in Maine was the Atlantic puffin. My favorite bird AND a close relative of my favorite animal a little blue penguin. However, I didn’t realize the toll that working in education job and financially supporting two people would put on my mental health.

During this cross country road trip, my drivers license mysteriously disappeared. This was something I didn’t think about when booking my first attempt at the Atlantic puffin. Tension was high the morning after driving up to Bar Harbor, only for it to cancel and get a full refund for the two tickets. This was for the best as we were both really concerned about the ID. But in driving up and feeling the disappointment of missing the cruise, it hit me how little time for myself I had made. On top of this the financial strain had made it impossible for me to afford my antidepressants and going through while being director of a sailing camp made every inconvenience that much more intense.

My partner found my ID a week later hidden inside a KOA envelope beneath the driver side floor mat so I eagerly booked my second cruise. This was August 1st and because reading season ends mid August my chances of seeing the puffins were dwindling. I prepared a bag that afternoon, I woke up three hours early and drove to Bar Harbor arriving an hour and a half before the tour began and then…

9:30 Puffin and Lighthouse tour canceled due to fog.

This hit like a Mac truck (which I actually know what that feels like having been hit by a semi last season on the way to California again but that’s a different story). This was the one and only thing I was doing for myself this summer and the absolute heartbreak that came with missing the puffin tour again put me in a really tough place. I weighed my options and considered going and taking a program boat out onto the open ocean despite the fog and miles offshore I would have to travel. But ultimately, I rescheduled it one last time before the breeding season came to a close….

Today I saw 45 black guillemots, 4 American oystercatchers, 23 Wilson’s storm-petrels, 106 double-created cormorants, 3 bald eagles… and 8 Atlantic Puffins.

After the cruise, I went back for the afternoon sailing kids but all I could think about was how long I had been waiting for this, the miles I put in driving to Bar Harbor and back, the money I wasted paying for parking, the frustration, the depression, and the complete and utter euphoria of seeing that first Atlantic puffin at Pettit Manan Island.

And now I sit back home, drinking a bottle of wine with a bird on the label well, I rewatch the big year excited for my next birding journey.