BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 10, 2023
Eastern Egg Rock, a tiny, seemingly nondescript, barren atoll located in outer Muscongus Bay, is one of a handful of locations along the Maine coast where Atlantic puffins come to nest. But it hasn’t always been that way. The colorful seabirds stopped returning to the rock around 1890. Until 1973, there was no reason to believe they would ever return. That summer, a team led by Stephen Kress began a painstaking effort to bring puffins back to the rock. For more than a decade, Project Puffin relocated chicks from Newfoundland and raised them on Eastern Egg Rock. After completing a circumnavigation of the rock, we began our journey back. ~ Ron Chase