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P is for Puffin

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I was tempted to make this post P is for Pokin, but thought that might be a bit much. :p So puffins it is. Specifically I’m going to yabber about Atlantic Puffins.

Puffin photo by mrpattersonsir’s

Aside from sea turtles, I’ve lately been obsessed with puffins. Why? Because I’ve been wanting to go to Iceland and Iceland is covered with puffins.

So puffins. What about them?

They’re the mascot for a children’s book division. They’re cute. Their colourful beaks and webbed feet make them highly photogenic. (Take that! Peru!) In fact, by some accounts, they are among the most photographed birds in the world.

Oh and we eat them.

But I don’t want to do that.

So puffins. These sea birds hang out 9 months of the year in oceans, and during this time, they float, dive, swim, and basically don’t come back to shore till they’re ready to breed. They live till they’re 20+ years old, and usually form life long pair bonds.

So where can you find Atlantic puffins then?

Iceland of course as a start. Some of the world’s largest colonies live here. Best places include: Látrabjarg out in the far western part of Iceland, Breiðafjörður and Lundey near to Reykjavik, the Westmann Islands, Hornbjarg and Hornstrandir in the north west.

What’s really cool about Iceland too is the “Night of the Pufflings.” Puffin pairs lay one egg a year, and the hatchling is then fed from birth till “long enough”, at which point the parents ditch the baby puffin and take off. This happens some time in August.

The young puffins are then left to make their way out to the ocean.

Thing is, this process forgot to take into account modern day human interference. The pufflings usually use the moonlight to guide them to the sea. And guess what? The street lights mess that up. So young puffins end up flying in all random directions, crash into light posts, and end up on the streets.

And this my friend, is when local children come to the rescue. They go out at night, gather these baby puffins, keep them overnight, and release them back into the ocean. Tagging along during these events is mucho-cool because it’s one of those opportunities where you’re actually allowed to touch them. No you’re still not allowed to man-handle them. You can touch them.

Over in the UK, the best bet for puffins is at the Isle of May off the coast of Scotland. Technically there are more puffins at the St Kilda archipelago and in Shetland, but of course the reason there are so many puffins is in no small part related to the fact that those places are a bit hard to access. Some 60 miles away by boat type of hard-to-access.

Close puffin access can be had on the west coast of Scotland near Lunga. In England, head to the Farne Islands, which are 2 miles off the coast of Northumberland.

Over in North America, the best puffin access is around the coastlines of Newfoundland. Witless Bay Ecological Reserve is your best bet. Some puffins can also be found in Maine. Maine puffins are scattered around a series of islands, creatively named: Eastern Egg Rock, Western Egg Rock, Large Green Island, SealIsland, Machias Seal Island and Matincius Rock. Love those names.

Puffin photo by Thomas O’neil

All this talk about puffins and I still have yet to go. Sadly I missed the timing this year, but I can’t wait to make up for this missed puffin time in a big way next year.