New Image: Atlantic Puffin

©jmillerphoto - Atlantic Puffin

I dug a little deeper into the archives for this one.  This is another of my Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) from the puffin cliffs at Látrabjarg in northwestern Iceland, an area us Americans liked to refer to as the Five Finger area of the country.

To make up for the fact that I really didn’t have a good story for my last new image, I’ll add an extra long one for this one.  This image was shot after what felt like a marathon travel day–probably because it was a marathon.  The trip had started on a Wednesday afternoon.  I was on vacation time, but I had been asked to help referee a soccer match between the local NATO team and a group of Russian sailors.  Of course, I couldn’t say no to such a request.  But after a long afternoon on the pitch and a quick shower, it quickly aproached late afternoon and a storm was on the way in.

Our destination for the evening was to be Ísafjörður, but fatigue caught up with me.  So in Hómlavík, at the base of a fairly significant mountain pass, we tried to find overnight accommodations.  We were not successful.  So instead we drove a bit out of town and ended up sleeping in the car.  It was not a restful nor comfortable sleep–five people in a Ford Escape made for cozy surroundings.   But it allowed us to get through the storm and then resume driving again a few hours later.

After having breakfast in Ísafjörður we then drove down the infamous Road 60 to Dynjandifoss, where I made a few images and proceeded to sleep again for another hour or so.  Then it was the remaining drive down the mountain and over to a campsite near the puffin cliffs.  After assembling the tent in 30 mph winds, I slept for a short period of time before heading out to the puffin cliffs.

In this imge, a puffin is standing on the cliff sporting a very nice pose.  I would have preferred that the bird behind him were somewhere else, but these things happen at Látrabjarg.  What still gets me in this image is the intense orange in his feet and his sharp claws at the end of those feet.

This image is available for purchase in the galleries in sizes up to 11×14.

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~ by Jim Miller on Friday, 22 January 2010.