here’s a lot to love about things. While most birds just when it’s time to raise their TAtlantic puffins.Check out fly through the air, puffins can chicks. Want to see how they those colorful bills and flashy fly through the air and the do it? Just turn the page. orange feet! water. And puffins spend most But puffins don’t just have of their lives living way out at cool looks. They do cool sea. They return to land only There’s Nothin’ PuffinLike a by Kathy Kranking
Puffins are right at home on steep, rocky cliffs. If you don’t mind the Greenland height, fly on over and meet these
amazing birds! ASIA EUROPE
NORTH WATCH IT! AMERICA ATLANTIC OCEAN AFRICA
where Atlantic puffins live A puffin is an expert at catching 6 fish—enough to fill its bill! CHRIS LINDER (6-7, 6 INSET) where Atlantic puffins nest 7 Puffins spend a lot of time just hanging out on the hillsides.
These mates are tapping bills to show that they care about each other.
A male and female puffin pass a feather back and forth to each other as they decide whether to add it to their nest. Land Ho! Puffins usually mate for At nesting time, puffins come life, and, shortly after coming other years. Or they may dig the nest, the puffins often stop in for a landing after months ashore, a pair begins looking a new one. The two use their to tap their bills together. This is at sea. They nest on islands or for a place to make a nest. But bills to dig, carving away at the called billing, and it’s the birds’ rocky cliffs along coasts of the the birds don’t look up, into the soil. As they dig, they shovel way of saying, “We’re mates, northern Atlantic Ocean (see trees—there usually aren’t trees the dirt out behind them with and we belong together.” map on page 7). where puffins nest. Instead, their clawed, webbed feet. The When the nest is finished, the In the spring, puffins get a they look down, because puf- finished burrow can be longer female lays just one egg in it. “makeover.” Their bills and feet, fins nest in burrows—another than you are tall! Both parents take turns sitting which are drab in winter, turn special thing about these birds. Next, the pair spends a lot of on the egg to keep it warm. But brightly colored. This makes them A puffin pair normally uses time gathering materials—such they also take turns guarding more attractive to their mates. the same nest they have used as grass or even feathers—to the burrow entrance against make a soft nest at the end of other puffins that may try to the burrow. While working on take over the burrow.
CHRIS LINDER (8TL); DAVID TIPLING (8BL); TUI DE ROY/MINDEN PICTURES (8-9); TIPLING (8BL); TUI DE ROY/MINDEN CHRIS LINDER (8TL); DAVID KNELL/NPL/MINDEN PICTURES (9BR) (9TR); STEVE VINCE BURTON/ARDEA.COM Puffins often wrestle over burrows, locking bills and flapping their wings as A puffin heads uphill with grass it will use to line its burrow. each tries to topple the other. 8 9 This puffin “flies” through the water as it hunts. Puffins are fast swimmers that can dive deep and stay underwater for up to a minute.
That means the parents can’t find the cold-water fish they need to feed their babies. Also, people have been catching too many fish for themselves. This A puffin sits in the entrance to has made it hard for puffins to the burrow it dug find fish in some areas. with its mate. Geronimo! When a puffling is about five Fishing for Baby to seven weeks old, it’s time for The parents take good care it to do an amazing thing. Under of their egg for about six weeks. cover of darkness one night, it Finally, a fluffy gray-and-white leaves the burrow. All by itself, baby, called a puffling, hatches! it finds its way to the cliff’s Room service! A puffin parent returns to the burrow with a fishy meal for its hungry, fuzzy chick. Now life gets really busy. The edge. And then it jumps off! It hungry chick needs to be fed may bounce along the cliff side several times a day. So it’s time until it finally lands in the water. for the parents to get fishing! Then it paddles away. A puffin may fly as far as 30 The young puffin is beginning miles out to sea to hunt fish for its life at sea without any help its chick. To catch the fish, the from its parents. It won’t return puffin uses its wings to “fly” to land for another two years. underwater, steering with its And it will be another three or feet. A puffin can carry lots of four years before it’s ready to fish in its bill at a time—usually mate. By then it will be sporting A billful of fish will soon be a bellyful of fish when this puffin reaches its nest around 10 or so, but the record to feed its chick. its colorful bill and feet—ready is more than 60! As it catches to dig a burrow and have a fish, the bird uses its rough puffling of its own. = tongue to hold them against take turns hunting for fish and face problems finding food for spines on the roof of its mouth. feeding the chick. But soon both their chicks. Possibly because of This young puffin has shed its For the first few days after a parents leave the chick to hunt. climate change, the waters can downy fluff and is swimming out to puffling hatches, the parents Some years, puffin parents be too warm at nesting time. sea for the first time. FRITZ PÖLKING/VISUALS UNLIMITED (10T); MICHEL POINSIGNON/NATUREPL.COM (10B); ALEX MUSTARD/NPL/MINDEN PICTURES (11T); ELIZABETH BOMFORD/ARDEA/ANIMALS ANIMALS (11M); JOUAN RIUS/NATUREPL.COM (11B)
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