Category: Birds with Fish

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Time for Tufted Puffins: Waiting for Birds with Bill Loads

By Jayden Washington Samuels, 2025 Tufted Puffin Photography Technician

The puffin is arguably one of the most iconic and recognizable seabird species on the planet. It’s one of the very few bird species that crosses over that imaginary chasm out of the birder world into the mainstream, where even those who aren’t in any way interested in birds, know what a puffin is. However, it isn’t exactly common knowledge that there are nesting populations of puffins in the Pacific Northwest. People typically associate the word puffin with only the Atlantic Puffin species, which is not found anywhere near the West coast. Here in Oregon, we have the Tufted Puffin, which happens to be the largest of the four technical puffin species (Tufted, Horned, Atlantic, and Rhinoceros Auklet).

A trio of tufted puffins flying by Haystack Rock, Oregon

The Tufted Puffin is a pretty widespread bird, as its range stretches from the islands and open ocean off of California all the way up to the coasts of Alaska, Russia, and northern Japan. Cannon Beach—a major stronghold for the population in Oregon—is one of the most accessible locations to observe Tufted Puffins, as they utilize burrows they’ve created in the grassy top of Haystack Rock. Unfortunately, the southern population of Tufted Puffins has seen a sharp decline, and due to their typical clutch size of one egg per season, it’s incredibly hard to bolster their populations. 

Many individuals—ranging from conservation biologists to local volunteers—have lended a helping hand in observing the Cannon Beach Tufted Puffin population, in order to understand the rate of decline and breeding success. The data gathered from these projects helps spread awareness for the vulnerable status of the Tufted Puffins

This is where I come in! I am a senior studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). I have been a birder and wildlife photographer for almost seven years now, and in my years at UCSC I have focused my studies and fieldwork on birds, and I have been able to be a part of incredible bird research endeavors like remote work in the Sierra Nevada mountain range focused on Sierra Nevada Gray-Crowned Rosy Finches, Peregrine Falcon breeding success and toxicology in the Greater Bay Area, and songbird banding at Younger Lagoon. 

A photographer standing in the ocean looking towards Haystack Rock.
A photographer on the beach

The goal of this specific project is to figure out the diet composition of Tufted Puffins in Oregon in order to have a better idea of what prey species they depend on, and if there’s any sort of linkage between their diet to their diminishing population status. 

The “How” of this project lies within a combination of having the proper gear to capture these amazing birds in flight—with fish in their bills (called a “bill load”), and in my eyes, a bit of luck to be present for said moment. The Sony A9 with the matching 200-600mm lens + the 1.4x Teleconverter gave me an excellent combination of industry leading autofocus and frames per second with the reach needed to see the puffins up close. My experience preceding this project with a similar camera setup allowed me to settle in pretty quickly; so the only variables that controlled my success was the amount of puffins returning fish to their young and tide/weather variation. 

This project has been ongoing for three years prior to me, and in two of those three years the average number of bill loads per season was just over 100. Last year had the most bill loads being almost three times these typical numbers. This season, I ended up not getting anywhere near as many bill loads as prior years. According to Tim Halloran, a long time volunteer who has done Tufted Puffin burrow counts for over a decade, many burrows appeared to be left unused or unsuccessful this season, meaning less chicks and in turn, less bill load photo opportunities for me.

In previous seasons the mornings seemed more productive for bill load photos. This year the evenings were significantly more productive, especially an hour or two right before sunset. My highest number of bill loads in a day ended up being 10 bill loads on a mid-July evening, and my lowest were a couple 1-3 day stretches with zero bill loads sighted. If I had to give at least one reason why there would be a lower occurrence of bill loads,

I think that the Bald Eagles might have at least some effect. While I never observed one catching a Tufted Puffin, they did repeatedly go for, and catch the Common Murres which also call the rock home. I would say 80-90% of my mornings and evenings out on the beach I at least observed two Bald Eagles, and I documented 12 separate “disturbances” to the colony linked to them attempting to prey on birds sitting on the rock.

A bald eagle holds onto a common murre while in flight.

A key part of this project that I enjoyed was the public interaction. I was able to engage with many visitors and locals alike, and I loved educating the public on the Tufted Puffins. My conversations ranged from giving out tips for telling the difference between puffins and murres in flight, to giving people their first look at some on the rock by lending them my binoculars. Even though this project focuses on Tufted Puffins, I was able to get a pretty decent number of Common Murre bill loads, as they also return full prey to their colonies! Something interesting about the murres is that they only carry one fish in each bill load, which is in stark contrast to the puffins who can have countless fish in their bills at once. 

A common murre with a single fish.

I am incredibly grateful to have been selected to be a part of this project, blending two of my greatest passions—birds and photography—into a research endeavor. I never thought I would personally be able to use my skills in Wildlife Photography in a dedicated research setting! 


I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Rachael Orben and Will Kennerley for this incredible opportunity.

Acknowledgments: In 2025, the Tufted Puffin Internship was supported by the Oregon Conservation and Recreation Fund. The Friends of Haystack Rock supported this project by providing intern housing in Seaside and Cannon Beach.

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“Professional Puffin Paparazzi”: Photographing Tufted Puffins at Haystack Rock

By Eliza Wesemann, Summer 2024 Tufted Puffin Bill Load Photography Technician

Pacific Herring, sardine, larval fish, salmon, smelt, squid, and lamprey. What do these ocean creatures have in common? They were all on the Tufted Puffin’s menu this summer, and this season the puffins ate like kings. My name is Eliza Wesemann, and this summer I worked for OSU’s Seabird Oceanography Lab as a Tufted Puffin Bill Load Photographer at Oregon’s iconic Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach.

Eliza Wesemann, summer technician for the Seabird Oceanography Lab, photographs Tufted Puffins at Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon

A little bit about me – I am a senior studying wildlife ecology and management at Utah State University. I am originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, and am pursuing a career focused on wildlife conservation and research. Over the years I have aided research projects on a variety of different species including Pinyon Jays, Greater Sage-Grouse, Mountain Goats, and American Pika, but Tufted Puffins hold a special place in my heart for their outrageously cute appearance and mannerisms.

Tufted Puffins are little black football-shaped birds with two long white/yellow eyebrow tufts, and a bright orange beak and webbed feet – in other words, a very silly looking bird! The Tufted Puffin population is thriving further north in Alaska, but they are struggling in the southern part of their range, from southern British Columbia to Northern California. Historically, Haystack Rock supported the second largest Tufted Puffin breeding colony in Oregon, with an estimate of 400 breeding birds in 1978. However, recent work by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report, the Haystack Rock population has dropped to just 102 breeding birds in 20241.

The decline of Tufted Puffins at Haystack Rock over 1978 to 2024
(data from Naughton et al. 2007 and USFWS, unpublished)

Reflecting this decline, Tufted Puffins are listed as ‘Endangered’ in Washington state, ‘Sensitive’ in Oregon, and a ‘Species of Special Concern’ in California. Efforts to list the bird as federally Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act have unfortunately fallen short, as the Species Status Assessment came to the conclusion that the listing is “not warranted” despite the decline of coastal colonies throughout the southern range2.

Haystack Rock is 236 feet tall, with steep grassy slopes home to all sorts of species of seabird nesting and rearing young. Beyond Tufted Puffins, Pigeon Guillemots, Black Oystercatchers, Western Gulls, Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, Common Murres, and Rhinoceros Auklets all call Haystack their home during the summer months. While most seabirds nest on the open slope, Tufted Puffins have earthen burrows hidden among the grass, making it difficult to keep track of active burrows and breeding pairs. In the recent Oregon Fish and Wildlife Monitoring Study, they found an estimated 51 occupied burrows with 102 breeding birds.

A Tufted Puffin returns to its burrow on Haystack Rock’s grassy slopes among nesting Common Murres

My goal was essentially to document the diet of Tufted Puffins by taking pictures (using a Sony A9 camera with 200-600mm lens) anytime I spotted a puffin with fish. I did the same for murres and pigeon guillemots with bill loads as well when the opportunity arose. Although the Tufted Puffins were generally the most active from sunrise to noon, their feeding schedules and Haystack appearances were elusive and inconsistent, often hard to predict. The puffins could be active and visible on the rock or in air flying laps, but not feeding; or completely hidden away in their burrows only leaving to collect fish, depending on the day. I made sure to be stationed at Haystack every morning to make sure to catch the puffins on their good eating days, as they were unpredictable.

My day-to-day schedule would be to wake up an hour before sunrise, prepare the camera and make my way down to the rock just as it was bright enough to shoot images. I would adjust the settings to the conditions of the day, stand as close as I could get to the rock given the tide, stare at the horizon, and wait until a puffin flew in towards the rock. In the time it took to spot a puffin, haul up my camera and zero in on the bird, they had often already disappeared into their burrows! Otherwise, they might fly an absurdly long lap around the rock, seemingly displaying their fish proudly! It was usually hard to tell if they had fish in their beak until after I had already taken the picture, so I would end the day sorting through hundreds of images of puffins in flight with only a small portion carrying bill loads of fish.

One of the more difficult skills I learned over the summer was distinguishing puffins approaching distantly from the sea from the other seabirds, which was even harder if the weather was overcast. Without the sun to illuminate the tell-tale white belly of the murre, the red feet of the Pigeon Guillemot and the orange glint of the puffin’s beak, the sky becomes a whirling mass of unidentifiable black flapping specks. In those moments, I would rely on the fact that puffins are slightly larger and darker against a gray sky, and hope for the best.

One of the most exciting highlights of the season was the feeding frenzy on July 23rd, where I captured a whopping 131 individual puffin bill loads on the camera. It was a very rare moment where the three variables of good puffin photos overlapped; low tide, partly cloudy but not overcast, and high puffin activity. I couldn’t put the camera down; the sky was filled with puffins with fish. Most puffins were bringing in multiple large smelt at a time, suggesting these fishes were just offshore, perhaps in a spawning aggregation. A few puffins were visibly rounder after that day – they evidently ate like kings!

A Tufted Puffin with a bill filled with smelt flies back to feed its chick during the July 23rd feeding frenzy

At Haystack, I had the opportunity to network with other wildlife photographers about “Birds with Fish”, a citizen science project exploring the diets of Oregon coastal birds using community-sourced, non-invasive photography. One of the highlights while working at Cannon Beach was engaging in side conversations with fellow photographers about puffins, conservation, and life in general. Helping visitors tourists identify puffins from Murres, introducing the ‘Birds with Fish’ initiative, and general wildlife public education were other valuable aspects of the position that I looked forward to during fieldwork.

Another highlight of the season was assisting Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists with their burrow counts of the puffins on Cannon Beach. Together, we tag-teamed the process: I pointed out puffins and tracked them into their burrows, then marked on a map the area of the rock the puffins flew into. It was exciting to be able to contribute the skills I learned over the season for research to uncover more about the Tufted Puffins at Haystack Rock.

Puffins have always held a special place in my heart, as I initially became passionate about wildlife conservation from photographing Atlantic Puffins during a trip in Iceland five years ago. So, this position was a perfect culmination of my interests–wildlife research and photography–an incredibly valuable ecological research experience, and all while experiencing the beautiful Oregon coast.

I would like to thank Dr. Rachael Orben and Will Kennerley at OSU’s Seabird Oceanography Lab for the amazing opportunity, as well as Friends of Haystack Rock and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for the support at Haystack Rock. This was a dream job and an experience I’ll never forget.

Acknowledgments: The Oregon Wildlife Foundation provided funding to support field work in 2024. The Friends of Haystack Rock supported this project by providing housing in Cannon Beach. Thank you!

  1. Stephensen, S.W. 2024. Tufted Puffin monitoring study at Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon 2010-2024. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Unpublished Report, Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Newport, Oregon 97365. 35 pp. ↩︎
  2. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). 2020. Species Status Assessment Report for the Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata), Version 1.0. Anchorage Fish and Wildlife Office, Anchorage, Alaska. ↩︎

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Photographing tufted puffins with bill loads at Haystack Rock

By Sam Eberhard

The tufted puffins of Oregon are spread thin among the grassy-topped rock formations that are suitable locations for their burrows. Tufted puffin populations have plunged from above 5000 breeding birds to an estimated 500 breeding birds in 2021 (USFWS coast-wide survey). Understanding this drastic decline, and what prey are currently supporting the population, is imperative for the conservation of these unique alcids. Noah Dolinajec (OSU, FWCS PSMFWA graduate student) is aiming to provide the first comprehensive diet information on the composition of the bill loads from tufted puffins in Oregon. This information will help managers place tufted puffins into the context of the marine food webs they depend on.

A tufted puffin with a bill load of larval fishes near Haystack Rock, Oregon

Bill load studies often involve netting of birds as they return to their burrows, but while that may work for other locations, it would be hard to accomplish on the small and rugged off-shore sea stacks on the Oregon coast.  Another less invasive option is photographing the bill loads of puffins – if there is an easily accessible location where birds can be observed.

In the summer of 2021, Noah spent days on Cannon Beach photographing bill loads of the breeding common murres and tufted puffins of Haystack Rock trialling the approach. It seemed promising, but a 300mm lens wasn’t enough. But, it was enough to plan for a second tufted puffin photography season at this iconic tourist destination.

This summer I (Sam Eberhard) was tasked with taking over the job of photographing bill loads at Haystack Rock. We got a modern mirrorless camera with great autofocus and paired it with some big glass (a 200-600mm zoom with a 1.4x teleconverter). As someone with both a passion for bird research and wildlife photography, I was hopeful that I could capture clear pictures of a large number of tufted puffin bill loads. 

My first days at Haystack Rock I got a feel for how frequently the puffins would arrive with fish for their newly hatched chicks, and how to reliably pick them out of the nearly constant stream of common murres. This knowledge became something that I would often end up sharing with the many tourists on the beach who also were excited to spot tufted puffins.

Low tides allowed me to get closer to the 235 foot tall rock, but these low tides didn’t always coincide with the morning, which was when the puffins were most active and the light was best. I didn’t anticipate that I would be using my waders at Haystack, but they proved to be quite helpful in making the uncooperative tides manageable. 

This year the tufted puffins attending the rock were in lower numbers than last year, a year that was by no means puffin-filled itself. My time on the beach was spent standing around and waiting for a black football furiously beating its wings to appear. Sometimes it would take up to an hour between puffin arrivals. That said, some days were relatively packed with puffin bill loads. My sixth day on the beach yielded 22 photos of tufted puffins with fish.

Some days seemed to have a combination of factors that aligned to lead to numerous bill loads, while many days the opposite seemed to occur. Of the 32 mornings on the beach I spent this summer, 13 days I photographed 1 or 0 puffins with fish. Two good mornings and a healthy collection average ones allowed me to assemble a data set of 139 bill load pictures this summer. Considering the puffin numbers this year, I think this result is encouraging for continuing this type of data collection. 

I am incredibly happy that I was able to spend my summer on such an incredible project. I was able to combine two of my passions and contribute to the understanding of a very special species. It’s hard to imagine a better summer than that. 

This project was funded by the Oregon Wildlife Foundation, Friends of Haystack Rock, and the OSU Marine Studies Initiative.