Tag Archives: birds

WMEO Commentary- “Cats & Birds: A Complicated Friendship”

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A fluffy orange cat sits on top of a kitchen stove, surrounded by countertop items, looking relaxed and slightly alert as he prepares to “anchor” from the kitchen.

⭐ WMEO Commentary: Live from the Lifestyle Desk

WMEO Anchor:

Banner Good afternoon. I’m Banner, reporting live from the kitchen because it’s comfortable and I was already here. Today’s top story: Cats and pet birds — friends, foes, or football snacks?A black cat with bright green eyes sits calmly while a blue‑and‑yellow budgerigar perches on top of the cat’s head against a soft, muted background.

We begin with a heartwarming historical report: Pitty Pat the Parakeet and Mittens the cat once lived together peacefully, proving that some cats can, in fact, behave themselves around birds.

Unfortunately, not all cats share Mittens’ enlightened worldview.

Field Reporter: Balboa

Balboa joins us from the hallway, where he has issued a formal statement:

“Birds are snack food with wings. Humans eat wings during football. I’m just following tradition.”

WMEO Legal would like to remind viewers that pet birds are not buffalo wings, but Balboa insists he is simply “respecting game‑day culture.”

A black cat sits on sandy ground facing a seagull with its wings partly spread and beak open, creating a tense standoff near the water’s edge.Experts believe Balboa’s stance may be influenced by his traumatic encounter with a seagull, who attempted to steal his microphone, his notes, and possibly his soul. Balboa has not forgiven the bird community.

Roving Reporter: Pumpkin Spice

Pumpkin Spice briefly checked in from atop the refrigerator, noting that “some birds are friendly, but others have… questionable motives.” He declined further comment and demanded snacks.

Pumpkin Spice — field reporter with his press pass and camera.

WMEO Conclusion While some cats, like Mittens, embrace feathered friendship… others, like Balboa, believe birds belong on the menu. WMEO encourages all viewers to remember:

Birds are friends, not football snacks — even if they do have wings.

Banner will now return to his nap.

A fluffy orange cat lies on his back on a carpeted floor near a sunlit sliding glass door, paws curled toward his chest as he relaxes in a warm patch of light.

WMEO will return to its usual professional newsroom setup in our next report… just as soon as we round up the staff, bribe Balboa out of the hall, and get Pumpkin Spice off the refrigerator.

empty news desk with microphone, toy mouse and teddy bear

WMEO: Seagull Crime Wave Sweeps Cape Cod

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Two cats sit at a WMEO 9 news desk with a microphone and papers, an orange cat on the left and a black cat on the right, with a newsroom backdrop showing seagulls and the headline “WMEO 9 – Crime on the Cape.”

By Banner & Balboa, WMEO Newsroom- We Meow, You Listen

Cape Cod residents are sounding the alarm this week as seagulls continue their bold streak of snack‑related crime. Witnesses report gulls swooping down without warning, grabbing sandwiches, chips, and in one case, an entire slice of pizza, before fleeing the scene like feathered fugitives.

WMEO reached out to several victims, all of whom described the attacks the same way: “Sudden, startling, funny… A seagull stands on an outdoor wooden table and steals a fried snack from a plate of food, surrounded by colorful metal chairs in an outdoor dining area. and absolutely disgusting.”

Banner, reporting live from the WMEO Coastal Desk, says the gulls have become so brazen that some tourists are now eating lunch under umbrellas — not for shade, but for protection.

Banner: “Authorities say the gulls are acting alone, but we suspect an organized snack‑stealing ring. Possibly unionized.”

Balboa attempted to interview one of the gulls but was met with a loud squawk and a very pointed stare. As WMEO’s resident snack addict, he took the crime wave very personally.

Balboa: “Authorities say the gulls are ‘extremely food‑motivated.’ As someone who is also extremely food‑motivated, I understand the lifestyle — but this is crossing a line. One suspect even tried to steal my microphone, possibly mistaking it for a breadstick.”

A posted sign shows a cartoon seagull holding a burger, with text warning that no refunds are given if a seagull steals your food.Local restaurants have begun advising customers to “guard your food like it’s the last donut on Earth.” Beachgoers have taken to eating inside their cars — a strategy WMEO officially endorses. Gulls have no respect for personal space or picnic etiquette.

Speaking from experience: once a gull lands on your plate, lunch is over.” There is no coming back from that.

WMEO will continue monitoring the situation as the gulls escalate their snack‑related activities. Citizens are urged to remain vigilant, keep sandwiches covered, and avoid eye contact with birds carrying criminal intent.

A seagull, an orange cat, and a black cat sit together at a WMEO 9 news desk; the black cat hisses while guarding a plate of treats as the seagull leans in toward the food.

Thanks for Watching. 
WMEO 9 — Going to commercial while Balboa secures the snacks

 

The Remarkable Return of Maine’s Puffins

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Five Atlantic puffins stand together on a large gray rock, their bright orange feet and colorful beaks contrasting with the muted stone. Green vegetation and blurred rocks fill the background, creating a natural coastal island setting.

 

A Personal Puffin Prelude

A scattered group of seabirds floats on choppy ocean water, bobbing among small waves. The birds are spaced across the frame, creating a sense of movement and open sea.I’ve shared my own puffin‑chasing adventures in Maine — from the fog‑soaked boat ride to Eastern Egg Rock to the wild, wind‑whipped journey out to Machias Seal Island in Canadian waters. Those trips were unforgettable, and they gave me the chance to photograph the clowns of the sea up close.

But I don’t think I’ve ever told the story behind why puffins disappeared from Maine in the first place, or how they eventually came home. It’s a tale equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful — and a reminder that humans can cause great harm, but also great healing.

When Feathers Became FashionAn illustrated group of five women wearing elaborate late‑19th‑century hats, each decorated with feathers, bows, or plumes. The women are dressed in high‑collared blouses with lace and ruffles, showcasing the ornate fashion styles of the era.

To understand the puffins’ disappearance, we have to step back to the late 1800s, when extravagant feathered hats were the height of fashion. Women’s hats weren’t just decorated — they were practically entire bird displays. Egrets were especially prized, but they weren’t the only victims.

A feather census in New York City once documented more than 700 women wearing hats adorned with feathers from roughly 40 native bird species. Herons, owls, woodpeckers — all were hunted, plucked, and sold to meet the demand.

Feathers became a global commodity. When the Titanic sailed on its maiden voyage, it carried more than 40 cases of millinery feathers destined for New York. Adjusted for today’s value, those crates were insured for over $2.3 million. In 1912, only diamonds were worth more pound for pound.

The Puffins Pay the Price

An Atlantic puffin stands on a pale rock near the ocean, its bright orange feet and colorful beak contrasting with the blue water in the background.Atlantic puffins once thrived on islands throughout the Gulf of Maine. But the feather trade wasn’t their only threat. Puffins were also hunted for meat and eggs, and their colonies were systematically wiped out.

At the same time, humans were destroying tern colonies — not realizing that terns acted as natural security guards. Without terns to chase off gulls, eagles, and other predators, puffins had no protection. They abandoned their nesting islands.

By the early 1900s, puffins had vanished entirely from the United States.

A Graduate Student With a Big Idea

Fast‑forward to 1971. Stephen Kress, then a young ornithology graduate student from Cornell, was working as a wildlifeAn Atlantic puffin stands on a rocky surface holding several small fish in its colorful beak. Its bright orange feet contrast with the muted rocks, and the scene reflects the bird’s natural coastal habitat. instructor in Maine. He learned that puffins once bred on Eastern Egg Rock, just six miles away — but hadn’t returned in nearly a century.

That discovery lit a fire in him.

Kress launched what became known as Project Puffin, an ambitious effort to reestablish a breeding colony on Eastern Egg Rock. Because puffins spend most of the year floating on the open ocean and only return to land to breed, he had a narrow window — April through August — to make the island feel like home.

The Early Experiments

An Atlantic puffin stands on a rocky surface, its bright orange feet and colorful beak vivid against the gray stones. Mossy patches on the rocks hint at its natural coastal habitat.

Kress and his team built artificial burrows and hand‑raised puffin chicks brought from Newfoundland. Between 1973 and 1981, they transplanted 954 pufflings to Eastern Egg Rock.

The chicks fledged successfully… but none returned to breed.

Mirrors, decoys, artificial burrows — nothing convinced the puffins to stay. For years, Egg Rock was a place to visit, not a place to raise a family.

The Turning Point

Everything changed in 1980 when terns — absent since 1936 — suddenly began nesting on Eastern Egg Rock again. TheirA tern flies low over rippling ocean water with its wings spread wide, holding a small fish in its beak as droplets fall beneath it. return created the protective environment puffins needed.

And then, in 1981, the miracle happened: the first puffling was raised on Egg Rock by puffin parents.

That single chick marked the beginning of a comeback no one had thought possible.

A close-up portrait of an Atlantic puffin, its bright orange-and-red beak and black-and-white plumage sharply detailed against a softly blurred background.A Colony Reborn

Today, Eastern Egg Rock hosts a thriving puffin colony along with roseate terns, black guillemots, razorbills, and other seabirds. Across five Maine islands, there are now roughly 1,300 breeding pairs of Atlantic puffins.

A species once wiped out from U.S. waters is now restored — thanks to persistence, science, and a whole lot of hope.

A Welcome Home

It’s one of the greatest conservation success stories in North America. The puffins — those bright‑beaked, clumsy, wonderful little birds — are back where they belong.

And every time I see them, whether bobbing on the waves or hopping into their burrows with a beak full of fish, I’m reminded that sometimes humans really can fix what humans broke.

An Atlantic puffin floats on calm ocean water, holding several small silver fish in its colorful beak. Its black-and-white plumage contrasts with the rippled blue surface around it.

More Reality Behind the Shot- The One that Almost Got Away

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A small Atlantic puffin floating on calm gray-blue ocean water, holding several silver fish crosswise in its colorful beak.

Red fox kit Monday afternoonFinding Gems in the Tedious Work

This photo‑tagging project can be tedious, but every so often it hands me a little miracle. That special shot I thought I’d missed.

I’ve been digging through older folders — the ones full of “not bad, but not good enough” pictures I skipped over during my first sort — and I’m finding gems I never appreciated at the time.

Why I Take So Many Photos

When I’m out on a photography excursion, I take tons of pictures. Way more than anyone needs. Birds and animals don’t pose on purpose, and sometimes I’ll see “The Money Shot”… only for the lighting to shift or the subject to wiggle out of frame. It’s hard work, but it’s also exciting. My adrenaline spikes, my heart races, and I’m basically running on pure wildlife‑photographer joy.

The Not‑So‑Fun Part: SortingBreaching Whale

Then I come home, load 200+ images into Lightroom, and the real work begins. I do a quick pass to eliminate the truly blah or out‑of‑focus ones, narrowing it down to the handful worth polishing. This part isn’t fun, but I do get lost in the art of “imaging.”

Why I Keep the “Almost” Photos

The good news? I rarely delete those second‑tier pictures. Time changes my perspective, and sometimes one of those “almost” shots ends up being exactly what I need for a post.

And that’s how I found him — my little puffin with a beakful of fish.

 

 

Award Winning Photo from the Internet

The Inspiration Behind the Shot

This photo earned an international award years ago and was one of the inspirations behind my puffin photography trips. If you do a Google search for puffins with fish, the web is full of these photos. On Machias Seal Island, I saw puffins returning with their catch, but the best I managed was a mouthful of shrimp. That was my last puffin trip.

Shrimp, Its what’s for dinner

A Foggy Day, a Rocking Boat, and a Forgotten Puffin

But while reviewing older shots from the Egg Island tour — yes, the foggy day on the rocking boat — I found a picture I’d kept only because it showed how tiny puffins look in the vast open ocean. This time, though, something caught my eye. A tiny detail. A shape.

It wasn’t so much “How did I miss that?” as “How did I see it now?” Sheer luck, maybe. Or just the magic of looking at a photo years later with fresh eyes.

Zoom… Zoom… Zoom

I zoomed in. And zoomed. And zoomed.

There they were. Fish.

My little puffin had a mouthful of fish after all.

Polishing the Shot That Waited for Me

I sharpened, cleaned up the color, and cropped the heck out of it. It will never be a gallery‑sized 16×20, but a small 5×7 will work beautifully. And sure, it would never pass even the first round of a photo contest — I had to zoom in way too far — but I don’t care.

I love my little puffin. I thought this was going to be “the one that got away.” Turns out he was waiting for me all along.

 

A Puffin Adventure 10 years Later

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Five Atlantic puffins standing on rocky coastal terrain with green vegetation, photographed on Machias Seal Island by Deb Neumann.

A Puffin Flashback Adventure

I fancy myself a wildlife photographer in my dreams. In my imagination, I’m off on Nat Geo expeditions, trekking through jungles and tundra, capturing rare animals in perfect light. Maybe I’m practicing for my next life, when I finally get to take great safaris to exotic places and photograph creatures in all their glory.

But in real life, I’m just regular old me — and yet there was one trip that did feel like a true adventure. One trip where I actually got to photograph amazing wildlife. Yes, they were birds… but very special birds. I got to see puffins.

You don’t find puffins in your neighbor’s backyard. You have to work for puffins, and believe me, I did.

Attempt #1: Eastern Egg Rock — Fog, Waves, and Bumblebees With Wings

My first attempt was a boat tour out of Bar Harbor, Maine, to Eastern Egg Rock in 2015. The entire trip was on a boat, and once we left the harbor, the ocean turned rough. As we neared the island, the fog rolled in — thick, cold, and absolutely relentless. A wet blanket in every sense.

But the puffins didn’t care. They were all around us, tiny little bumblebees with feathers. Round bodies, small wings, and yet these miniature sea birds spend most of the year at sea. They only come ashore during their breeding season, which in Maine is July.

I spent most of the trip flattened on the bow, trying to steady my camera with a 600mm lens while the boat rocked and rolled under me. The puffins were tiny specks in the distance, and most of my photos ended up soft or blurry. It was exhilarating — no question — but from a photography standpoint, it was more “experience” than “results.”

I was disappointed, but not defeated.

Attempt #2: Machias Seal Island — A True Adventure

I’d been a Mass Audubon member for years, mostly for access to their wildlife sanctuaries. Shortly after my Egg Rock trip, I heard about their annual July bird‑watching trip. I’d missed it in 2015, but I had almost a year to prepare for 2016 — if they held it again.

I became the biggest nuisance in the history of the local chapter. I called. I emailed. I checked in constantly. And when they finally announced the trip, I was the first person to sign up.

This trip was farther north, deep into the disputed waters between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. Machias Seal Island is jointly managed by the U.S. and Canada, and access is extremely limited. Most tours depart from New Brunswick, but there is one U.S. operator — and that’s who Audubon contracted with.

It was a true adventure‑style trip, the kind that stays with you. Cold weather even in July, rocking boats and tenders that made you hold onto your hat, and wildlife everywhere. Eagles overhead, seals on the rocks, and of course the puffins — those little clowns of the sea.

And although I didn’t get to witness it firsthand, the Bay of Fundy is home to the highest tides on earth, often reaching around 40 feet. Just knowing I was in a place with that kind of natural power added to the feeling of being somewhere wild and extraordinary.

The Crossing

We boarded the tiny boat at dawn for a very cold, rough, windy trip from Cutler, Maine. The crossing is about an hour — a very long hour when your seat is out in the open. The only warmth was in the wheelhouse, where the captain and mate stayed tucked away.

As soon as we reached the island, we saw birds everywhere: gannets, razorbills, and even a seal stranded high on a ledge, left behind by the receding tide. But the puffins ruled the day. They were everywhere.

Into the Blinds

Once off the rocking boat and into a tender, we were ferried to a long boardwalk that snaked up toward the lighthouse. The organizers assigned us to blinds — tiny wooden huts where we’d spend the next two hours. We couldn’t leave, and we could only open the windows on one side at a time. The restrictions were for the puffins’ comfort and safety, but even so, it was an incredible show.

Birds were landing on the roof of the blind. Their feet made strange scratching sounds  mixed with the thumps of thier landings. It was surreal. It would make a great horror sound track.

The puffins were in their courting colors — bright orange beaks and matching feet. They were beautiful. Clumsy little birds flying in with beaks full of shrimp and fish. Two hops and they disappeared into their rock burrows.

The time passed quickly, and too soon we were escorted back to our little boat for the long, cold trip to Cutler. It was even colder in the late afternoon, but as miserable as the weather was, I would repeat that trip in a heartbeat.

For those two hours, I really felt like a wildlife photographer — living my dream.

Ten Years Later

Machias Seal Island was 2016. Ten years ago. Audubon still runs puffin trips in July — mostly the gentler Eastern Egg Rock style ones — but Machias Seal Island remains the same rugged, wild adventure it’s always been. Tiny boats. Rocking tenders. Cold winds. A landing that requires balance, grit, and a good sense of humor.

And I’ll be honest: I’m not entirely sure I could manage the rocking boats and tenders now, ten years later. Even if I could I’d still have the climb to the lighthouse that nearly did me in 10 years ago.

But I’d sure like to try.