Posted on June 11, 2009 - by Denise

Fact File – Puffin

Puffin

Fratercula arctica

This is quite an easily identifiable bird, with a clown-like eye and a large triangular beak. This beak becomes even more flamboyant during the breeding season, when it develops a yellow triangular outline to the base and becomes a deeper red at the tip. The juveniles have a darker grey face. The puffin is quite a stocky bird, which can appear to be quite clumsy upon landing.

Best places to see them in Devon:

Lundy Island. Go to Jenny’s Cove, about half way up on the Western coast. Look at the grassy cliff-top.

They have also been spotted flying past Hope’s Nose on the South coast of Devon, but are not thought to nest there.

Best time of year to see them:

June-July, when the adults are regularly fishing to catch fish to feed their chick.

Habitat:

Puffins spend a lot of their life in the open sea and come to breed in mid-March, where they will inhabit sheltered burrows on grassy cliff-tops. They may return to these particular burrows year after year. They may dig their own burrow, up to 2 m deep or use old rabbit or Manx Shearwater burrows, or they may nest between large but close boulders.

Diet:

Small fish, predominantly sand eels, crustaceans, marine worms and small squid. The inside of their beaks has backward pointing spikes, to allow them to carry many items of prey at a time. One has been spotted carrying 70 sand eels!

Breeding habits:

They tend to breed on the West and North coasts of Britain and leave again by early August. They start breeding at the approximate age of four years and lay just one egg per couple per year. They are usually monogamous, taking it in turns to incubate it the egg and sharing the task of feeding the chick (or puffling).

It takes up to three months to rear the young chick. The adults leave the nest before the chick, which will leave a few days later under the protective cover of darkness. The chick’s aim at that point is to get to the sea as quickly as possible to feed. It will then start to practice flying. It will then hopefully go on to live for up to 30 years.

Threats to their population:

Puffin numbers have decreased dramatically in Lundy Island, and elsewhere throughout Britain. This is largely blamed on an increase in sea temperatures, which encourages their favoured prey, sandeels, to move further north. Very recently, scientists have been fitting puffins with geolocators embedded in leg rings. These have identified that puffins spend a lot of time in the North Sea. Scientists now intend to find out if prey numbers are decreasing in those areas.

Wild about Devon spotting:

Lundy Island, 28^th May 2009.

Photograph: T. Muller