Mic Drop

Adam Smith, a visiting investigator in WHOI biologist Aran Mooney’s lab, sets up several microphones that will be “dropped” down the side of a cliff and into the burrows of nesting puffins in a colony near Husavik, Iceland. The instruments will help researchers learn more about puffin soundscapes—the natural sounds and ambient noise in the birds’ environments. The beloved diving seabirds have been on the decline since the 2000s due to fewer food resources in the North Atlantic. (Photo by Aran Mooney, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)