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Atlantic Puffin

✨ The colorful clown of the Northern seas

The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) is a seabird that breeds on rocky coasts and islands across the North Atlantic. It is easy to recognize by its black-and-white plumage, compact body and brightly colored beak, which becomes especially vivid during the breeding season. Outside this period, the beak is smaller and less colorful.

Although it looks somewhat clumsy on land, the puffin is an agile flier, beating its wings rapidly to stay airborne. It is also an excellent swimmer and diver, using its wings underwater as if they were flippers. Dense waterproof feathers and a layer of fat protect it from the cold waters where it spends most of its life, often far from land except during the nesting season.

The Atlantic puffin feeds mainly on small fish such as sand eels, herring and capelin, which it catches during repeated dives that can reach depths of more than 50 meters. Its tongue and the rough spines inside its beak allow it to hold several fish at once while continuing to hunt.

Puffins usually nest in burrows dug into grassy cliffs or in natural crevices among rocks, where the female lays a single egg each year. Both parents share the work of incubating the egg and feeding the chick until it is ready to leave the nest. Today, many puffin populations face growing challenges from climate change, shifting fish stocks, pollution and invasive predators introduced to breeding islands.

💡 Did you know?

Can you hold 10 slices of pizza in your mouth at once? Well, a puffin can do something very similar with fish! Thanks to small spikes on the roof of its mouth and its rough tongue, it can pin up to 60 small fish in its beak at one time. This is super handy for bringing a feast to its baby (the 'puffling') waiting in the burrow without having to make too many trips.

Did you know that puffins 'fly' underwater? They are fantastic swimmers and divers. Instead of using their feet to paddle, they flap their wings very fast just as if they were flying, but through the water! They can dive as deep as 60 meters (200 feet) and stay underwater for a whole minute. Their small, super muscular wings make them champions in the air and in the ocean.

The puffin's magnificent beak actually changes with the seasons! The bright orange and yellow colors that make it look like a parrot only appear in the spring to show off. But when winter and the cold arrive, these colorful plates fall off its beak! It then becomes very small and grey. When spring returns, its beak is adorned once again with its pretty colors. It's a bird that changes its look every year!