The Appeal Of The Puffin

With their large multicoloured bills, these adorable birds have been called the clowns of the sea by Mary Flament, Dundas, Ont.

- Mary Flament, Dundas, Ont.

My husband Andy and I are not serious birdwatchers, although we do enjoy observing them. Over time, from near and far, Andy has photographed a wide range of bird species. We find it especially exciting to discover unique birds found only in certain locales, and recently while on holiday in Newfoundland, we added another ”first-timer” to our list— the Atlantic puffin.

During the warmer months, Newfoundland hosts millions of birds, including thousands of Atlantic puffins. I was surprised to learn these birds spend most of their lives out at sea and their role while on land is for breeding purposes only. While the ways of nature are often amazing and should be respected, I cannot help but pity immature puffins who are too young to mate, for they must live out on the open ocean until full maturity is reached and that could take four or five years!

While it is usually a bird’s plumage that changes with the onset of its breeding season, it is oddly different for Atlantic puffins. For them, it is their beaks and feet. From approximately April to August, their beaks are more brilliant in colour and their feet a brighter orange, but before winter arrives, both these features will dull considerably. In fact, when the breeding season ends, they shed their colourful outer bills and for the next while have noticeably smaller and duller beaks. Unlike most bird species puffin genders look alike although males tend to be slightly larger.

A first glimpse at puffins and one might jokingly imagine Mother Nature mixing together two extreme world regions—penguins from the icy north and toucan-like birds from the steamy tropics. And yet puffins are not kin to either.