from the "
i'll be home for christmas" file
Atlantic Puffin Shows Up In Downtown Montreal
Shelter trying to send it back to Newfoundland
CBC News Posted: Dec 20, 2011
The young puffin, originally from the Atlantic Coast, is now resting in a bathtub while staff from a wildbird centre try to book a flight to send it back home. (Le Nichoir)
A Montreal woman found an Atlantic Puffin on a downtown Montreal street last week, and a local animal shelter is now trying to find a way to get the bird back home to St John's for Christmas.
The young puffin is in the hands of Le Nichoir, a wildbird rehabilitation centre in Hudson, Que., just west of the island of Montreal. It is currently resting in the bathtub of one of Le Nichoir's staff.
The centre's executive director, Susan Wylie, told the CBC she wasn't sure how the bird ended up so far from its home on the Atlantic coast.
Her theory is that the puffin caught a ride on a ship heading up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal.
With Thursday's pounding rain, Wylie suspects the puffin mistook the streets of the city's downtown core for a body of water and then couldn't take off again.
"The way their bodies are built with their legs very far behind their back, they're not able to fly off the ground...so they get almost stranded," Wylie said.
Le Nichoir's staff is working to get the puffin, who's a year old, back to Newfoundland before Christmas Eve. They may put it on a plane Tuesday night but the ticket could set the wildbird centre back about $150.
The puffin may be lonely once it arrives home because most Atlantic puffins have already migrated. "He's a straggler," Wylie said.
It will also be checked by a veterinarian who specializes in puffins to make sure its feathers weren't contaminated during its travels and are still waterproof.
Puffin Wings Way To Newfoundland
By ANNE SUTHERLAND, The Gazette December 22, 2011
The wildlife permits for transportation have been filled out, and a special travel crate built.
Montreal's favourite little wayward Atlantic puffin will be on an Air Canada flight Thursday morning en route to Newfoundland and a colony of peers.
The puffin will have to go through the centre of the universe, Toronto, en route to The Rock.
"We'll be taking the bird to the airport (Trudeau) at 7 a.m. for a 9 a.m. flight and the bird will be kept in a warm truck until 20 minutes before takeoff," said Lynn Miller with Le Nichoir bird rehabilitation and sanctuary in Hudson.
The puffin has been cared for in a home of one of Le Nichoir's volunteers since it was found wandering on Guy St.
Susan Wylie, who has been helping to care for the six-month-old puffin, spent most of Wednesday building a special crate to keep the bird safe.
"There's another warm truck in Toronto at Pearson airport on the tarmac where the bird will be kept until the second flight leaves at 11: 45 a.m. " Miller said.
Air Canada Flight 692 is scheduled to land in St. John's, Nfld., at 4: 14 p.m. and the bird will be handed over to a local bird expert who will pick our puffin up and keep him for a couple of days.
Maybe by Sunday, the Coast Guard will have found a colony of puffins on the shoreline that will be our little friend's new home.
"He's definitely winging his way home for Christmas," Miller said.
