Atlantic Puffin

The Atlantic Puffin is one of the most beloved and instantly recognizable seabirds, famous for its clownish, brightly colored bill and upright, penguin-like posture on land. In breeding plumage, the bill becomes a striking wedge of orange, yellow, and blue-grey, paired with a black cap, grey face, and crisp black-and-white body. Outside the breeding season, the bill sheds its colorful outer plates and the face darkens, giving a duller, less flamboyant appearance.

Despite its comical looks on land, the Atlantic Puffin is a superb swimmer, using its wings to "fly" underwater in pursuit of small fish, and spends the vast majority of its life far out at sea, coming to land only to breed.

Key field marks

• Large, colorful triangular bill in breeding season (orange, yellow, blue-grey)
• Black upperparts, cap, and neck collar
• White face and underparts
• Orange legs and feet

Similar species

• Tufted Puffin and Horned Puffin occur in the North Pacific and do not overlap in range with the Atlantic Puffin.
• Razorbill and murres share the black-and-white pattern but have slimmer, more pointed or less colorful bills lacking the puffin's distinctive rainbow bill.
• Non-breeding adults and juveniles have smaller, duller, greyish bills, making them less immediately recognizable than breeding adults.

Atlantic Puffins breed on grassy cliff-top slopes and rocky islands around the North Atlantic, from northeastern North America (including Maine and eastern Canada) across Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Britain and Ireland, to Scandinavia and Arctic Russia. They nest in burrows dug into soil or use natural rock crevices on predator-free islands and headlands.

Outside the breeding season, puffins disperse widely across the open North Atlantic, spending autumn and winter entirely at sea, often far from any coastline, before returning to the same nesting colonies each spring.

Behavior

Puffins are excellent divers, using their wings to propel themselves underwater in pursuit of fish, often diving to depths of ten meters or more and remaining submerged for around 20-30 seconds.

Voice

At the colony, puffins give a low, growling "arr" call from inside their burrows; they are largely silent at sea.

Feeding

Small schooling fish such as sand eels, herring, and capelin are the primary prey, with puffins able to carry multiple fish crosswise in their bill thanks to backward-pointing spines on the palate and tongue.

Nesting and breeding

Pairs excavate or reuse burrows, sometimes over a meter long, in which a single egg is laid; both parents share incubation and chick-feeding duties, and the chick fledges alone at night, making its way to the sea unaided.