Puffin

"Most s winter well offshore in the central North Pacific. There are about one million individuals, with 86% in North America. The Horned Puffin generally nests among rocks or in cracks in the cliffs. ... The Tufted Puffin is the commonest puffin in the Pacific with 3 million birds (82% in North America). Breeding colonies occur on both sides of the Pacific from the Arctic south to in Japan and to the winter waters of California. Wintering areas are located in the deep oceanic waters of the central North Pacific. Birds typically breed in earth burrow near the cliff edge, partly because it is easy to dig there and partly because there the heaviest of the puffins and have difficulty in taking off from flat ground. ... Adults eat mainly squid and planktonic invertebrates."

"... the young puffin, unlike the young , is lively and active at birth, and can soon walk about. Protected by a thick coat of soot-coloured , with white breast, it hardly needs the warmth of the under the parental wing."

"The first scientific studies of Puffins were by on between 1927 and 1939, rather as a sideline to his pioneering work on the . During this period, Skokholm became one of the worlds best-known seabird islands. After the Second World War, Lockley turned his attention to and in 1953 published his monograph Puffins in which he described Puffin biology and behaviour in very evocative prose."

"Iceland is the stronghold of the with the majority of the worlds population. Thus, it is not surprising that the species has been an important part of Icelandic culture, folklore and food for many centuries. Aever Petersen (Icelandic Institute of Natural History) initiated the study of Puffins there during the early 1970s. The off Icelands southern coast have around three-quarters of a million pairs of Puffins breeding at high density on the grassy tops of more than 20 islands in the group. There is a long tradition of fowling and records of the catches have been kept since 1910 with detailed records since 1946. These show that the numbers killed have declined in recent years despite no great reduction in hunting effort."

"All birds have upper and and lower eyelids. They protect the eyes and are closed when the bird sleeps. Birds also have an inner eyelid that wets and cleans the eye. This third eyelid is cloudy in most birds. But the puffins inner eyelid has a clear center. It lets the puffin see underwater, even when the lid is protecting the eye."

"For a seabird, the is diminutive. It stands just 18–20cm (7–8in), which is about as tall as a paperback novel, and it is 26–29cm (10–11.5in) long from the tip of its bill to the end of its short, pointed tail. By comparison, a is 46cm (18in) long and a up to 80cm (24in) long. The puffin weighs between 350 and 600g, while the herring gull weighs up to 1500g. Seeing these figures it is easily understandable how puffins can be bullied by herring gulls and other birds."

"The breeds from France and the in the south to as far north as there is ice-free land and has been studied throughout its range. It winters over vast areas of the North Atlantic and, in small numbers, the Mediterranean .. It is the most numerous of the ... puffins with some 20 million individuals. The single egg is incubated for six weeks and the chick is fed on small fish for another six weeks. The chick is independent after it has fledged."

"Iceland is by far and away the Puffin capital of the North Atlantic, supporting around 2.5–3 million pairs. In 1994 it was decreed that hunting with fleygs could only take place from 1 July to 15 August. Puffins arrive in Iceland in late April and leave at the end of August, so the open season for hunting was chosen to coincide with the maxim presence of the late-arriving immature birds to relieve hunting pressure on the May-June breeders. Thus non-breeding two- to four-year-olds have traditionally been claimed to comprise over 90 per cent of the catch, although nowadays many more nesting birds are allegedly killed in the hunt. As on the , Icelands Puffins have declined catastrophically in recent years, with colonies in the south and west hardest hit. Records of the Puffin harvest reflect this: in the mid-1990s over 200,000 birds were caught annually in Iceland (by 100–200 hunters), compared with fewer than 40,000 in recent years."