One evening in April, a group of midcoast teachers gathered in Waldoboro to sniff the musky odor of a deceased storm petrel, test out a “blubber mitt” and turn a paper plate into a puffin.
These were but a few of the activities overseen by Sue Schubel, outreach educator for Audubon, as she handed elementary and middle school teachers an arsenal of information on her favorite winged creatures, “birds who make their living from the sea.”
Schubel, known as “Seabird Sue,” ran the third workshop in the seven-part “Muscongus Among Us” series offered free to midcoast teachers by the Quebec Labrador Foundation (QLF) on Thursday evenings, March 18 through June 3 at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension building in Waldoboro.
“This is a great way for all the educators to get know each other and find ways to make Muscongus Bay a focus of learning for the students who live here,” said Jennifer Atkinson, QLF’s marine programs director. “We’re trying to strengthen the relationships between the public school teachers and other educators so we can make the most effective use of the resources we have here to help students learn about where they live.”
Entitled “Fat, Feathers and Fashion: A Seabird’s Tale,” Schubel’s workshop offered a glimpse into the lives, lifestyle and history of many seabirds. Then it concentrated on the puffin – specifically the restoration of puffin colonies to islands off the coast of Maine.
“Most seabirds are found on islands because they are safe from predators,” said Schubel, showing a series of slides that included pictures of sooty shearwaters, storm petrels, white terns, boobies (“I always get a few giggles in the grammar schools with that name”) and other birds. But nesting seabirds and their eggs are often exposed to predators who share the same islands, such as herring gulls, which made puffin restoration in Maine difficult, Schubel said.
“The 1605 log of the vessel ARCHANGEL described ‘blizzards of birds’ off Maine,” said Schubel. Native Americans, relatively few in number, did little to reduce the sea bird populations, “but when the Europeans came, they took eggs for food.” Later, the “eggers” began selling large numbers of eggs to Boston.
“How do you know if an egg is fresh, or if it contains a half-grown chick?” asked Schubel. The “eggers” had the answer. They would go out a few days before a planned egg harvest and smash all the existing eggs. When they returned a few days later, they knew all the eggs they found were fresh.
Seabird populations were decimated by collectors in the 19th century who killed the birds to provide feathers for ladies’ hats. In 1900, only one pair of puffins remained on Matinicus Rock, the last place puffins reportedly existed in Maine. Restoration began in 1973, with six chicks.
“Researchers thought about bringing eggs and incubating them on the island,” said Schubel. “But it’s a lot of work. And puffins almost always return to the island they fledged from. If all the Eastern Egg Rock puffins were killed, there would be none that would remember to go back there. So, they decided to get chicks that were already hatched and bring them to Eastern Egg Rock.”
She showed workshop participants the “chick carrying case” designed and built from plastic pipe and burlap by researchers to house chicks for the long journey to Eastern Egg Rock from Great Island in St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland. Because puffin restoration was new, researchers “got to invent everything.”
“Great Island has a dangerous approach and it’s often foggy,” said Schubel. “The chicks had to be flown in a small plane, then driven in a rental car and then taken by boat to the island.” Once on the island, researchers created L-shaped burrows out of sod for the chicks.
“Every year, new chicks would be brought to the island,” said Schubel. Up to 99 percent of the chicks usually survived the six weeks before they “fledge” or fly off on their own. Researchers “waited and waited, years and years and years” often crouched with binoculars behind burlap blinds on the islands, said Schubel. “But it took six years before one came back. The first hard years out at sea, hardly any survived.”
Puffin eggs are laid and the chicks are incubated in burrows. For three days, parents keep them warm, but after that parents just feed the chicks. At six weeks old, pufflings fly away from their islands and don’t return for two or three years. No one really knows for sure where they go during those years, said Schubel, but they come back when it’s time to reproduce.
In a project aimed at restoring murres wiped out by a major California oil spill, researchers used decoy birds and eggs, solar-recharged sound systems and mirrors to attract birds back to their nesting island.
To illustrate the difficulties little puffins have once they leave their island, Schubel enlisted the teachers to play “Pufflings’ Journey,” a game that pits the “pufflings” from either Seal Island, Matinicus Rock or East Egg Rock against the dangers they face.
Tossing tiny fish on the floor to provide puffin food, Schubel added sharks, fishing boats and nets, plastic trash and tiny oil slicks to represent pollution. Teachers lined up on either side of the floor. One side tossed their “pufflings” into the ocean, hoping they would land on food and avoid danger. Most survived, giving the teachers’ wooly puffins a higher survival rate than the real birds.
However, the puffins had to make the journey back and forth to the island three times altogether, and sometimes, the dangers changed. Large oil slicks were added; the number of available fish decreased. Survival rates in the room dropped.
“Kids love this game,” said Schubel. “You can do it with any animal whose survival techniques and eating habits you know.”
Schubel handed around hollow gull eggs, stuffed birds and decoys for perusal, as well the carcass of a tiny brown storm petrel so teachers could note its distinctive musky smell (“Ugh. Like the cellar,” said one teacher.).
Seabirds need feathers and fat to survive the cold of the northern Atlantic. To demonstrate the warmth of feathers, Schubel handed around a ball of downy fluff – so light it appeared to weigh nothing, but which warmed participants’ hands as soon as it touched them. She illustrated fat’s warming properties using a “blubber mitt” – two resalable bags lined with a layer of vegetable shortening. Donning the “blubber mitt” on one hand and a mitt made from two unlined bags on the other, teachers dunked their hands in a tub of ice water for 20 seconds. One hand quickly became cold, while the blubber mitt kept the other hand warm.
Besides the survival game and the scientific “blubber” demonstration, Shubel showed teachers how to execute a simple craft with their classes using a paper plate. Folding the plate in half, Schubel snipped off a corner and stapled the smaller piece near the cut, along the fold at the top of the plate. Teachers then used puffin pictures as a guide to color the Atlantic puffin’s distinctive beak.
A total of 16 teachers and educators signed on for the series, which offers continuing education units. The workshops are one activity of the Muscongus Among Us alliance of educators from the bay region founded in 2002 and organized by Atkinson. Members include public school teachers from Union 74, SAD 40, SAD 50 and educators from various environmental organizations, boat lines and museums.
Other workshops in the series include lobster anatomy, phytoplankton, Wabanaki studies, the intertidal zone, the bottom of the bay and the life and times of General Henry Knox.