10 things you might not know about Puffins
1. Silent at sea
Puffins spend most of their time out at sea, only returning to land for a few short months to breed. On land, they make the most peculiar noise – like a low growl – as they go about their business. At sea, they don’t make a squeak and remain completely silent.
2. They lose their beaks
The outrageously coloured puffin beaks that we all love are only for show during the breeding season. Whilst wintering out at sea, puffins lose the outer beaks to reveal a smaller, black beak that does not operate as a target for predators.
3. They are smaller than you think.
Smaller than the Horned Puffin and the Tufted Puffin, the Atlantic puffin weighs about the same as a can of Coke. Or any other regular can of soft drink, for that matter.
4. Pufflings, though
Puffins mate with the same partner for life, returning each year to the same burrow with the same partner to raise a single chick. To reacquaint with each other, puffins knock and rub their bills together; this is called ‘billing’. Puffin chicks are known as ‘pufflings’, and once hatched, remain underground in the burrow until ready for a life at sea.
5. Flight is hard.
Puffins can fly, reaching top speeds of 55mph, but it takes some doing. A serous amount of flapping is required; 300 to 400 flaps of their short wings per minute are required to keep their portly bodies airborne. If you are close enough to a flying Puffin, you’ll be able to hear the flapping noise.
6. Swimming is easier.
Using their wings to power through the water, and feet as rudders, puffins are masters at swimming underwater. They can dive for up to a minute and as deep as 60m to catching herring, hake, sand eels and other small fish.
7. Disco puffins
Puffin beaks glow under UV light, like an old school 90’s rave. This was only discovered in 2018, and social media lit up with photos of glowing puffins and tests with sunglasses. Research is underway to find out exactly why, but it’s thought to be linked to attracting mates for breeding. Like an old school 90’s rave then.
8. Fish moustaches
Puffins can carry more than one fish at a time, using specially adapted beaks that can apply equal pressure along their length, and backwards facing spines inside the beak which puffins can push fish against using their tongues to hold them in place. They usually hold about ten fish at a time, but it could be many more. Hence, all the photos of puffins with silvery moustaches of fish!
9. Underground, overground.
Puffins nest underground, digging a burrow using their feet or sometimes using rabbit burrows. Burrows are about a metre long, and have a bedroom complete with a bed of feathers and grass for incubation and puffling rearing, and a bathroom so that puffin poop doesn’t foul their feathers. How civilised.
10. Puffins live forever.
Well, almost. Puffins can survive for around 20 years in the wild, although the oldest recorded is Puffin from the Shiant Isles, Scotland who is at least 37 years old.
Every Last Puffin is now on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1978797490/every-last-puffin
