Puffin Bird Unique Design
by Owen Borville
July 26, 2020
Biology
The puffin is a small seabird and is a unique design, with dark, a black colored head, back, and wings and a white chest and underside, orange webbed feet, and just an average of 10 inches tall.
Environment
Puffins spend most of their lives around the sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean near Europe or North America, either on the waves or swimming. Predators of puffins include the gulls. Puffins only come on land to breed and nest and therefore live around coastal areas.
Beak Color and Ability
Puffin's large, sharp, colorful beaks have unique striped layers of bright and dark colors and change color during the year. In the winter, the beak is dull grey while it changes to a bright orange in the spring. The outer layer of the beak sheds after the fall season, leaving it dull-colored but turns back to bright orange by spring. Scientists believe that the colorful beaks help the puffin attract mates during the breeding season in the spring. These carnivores eat small fish. Puffins can hold more than 10 fish in their beaks at a time, more than most birds, and enough to feed their young. Their beaks and tongues were designed to carry many fish as their tongues have a coarse structure while its mouth has spikes that help keep the fish stuck in the puffin's beak. A puffin once set a record in Britain for carrying 62 fish at one time.
Athletic Ability of Puffins in Flying and Swimming
Puffins look like penguins, but these puffins can fly. Puffins are strong flyers and flap their wings 400 times per minute, and fly 88 km per hour (55 miles per hour). Puffins are also great swimmers, as their webbed feet and wings allow them to dive 60 meters underwater in search of fish for about 30 seconds. Puffins use their wings to both fly and to swim underwater.
Finding Home Puzzles Scientists
Puffins have unique ways of finding home. After hatching and growing for a while, a young puffin leaves home for the ocean for several years. Then it returns home to its birth spot and breeding colony and sometimes nests there. Adult breeding puffins return to the same location every spring to breed again with the same partner. Scientists are not sure how puffins find home but possibly use a variety of sensory abilities to sense magnetic fields, stars, sounds, smells, and vision. This is a problem for evolution. If puffins could not find home, they could not find their breeding colonies to reproduce. Puffins also somehow find their same partner to mate.
Breeding and Nesting Behavior
Puffins gather on coasts and islands in large colonies to breed and are usually monogamous. When courting, puffins rub and strike their beaks together. Puffins build a nest in the ground and lay their egg, just one per year, while both parents help incubate the egg for five or six weeks. Puffins don't build a typical nest like most birds but dig a hole in the ground about three feet with their beak and webbed feet. Puffins also find secure spots between rocks on coastal cliffs to make a nesting site with easy access to the sea. Breeding colonies of puffins make chattering noises, but these puffins are silent when out to sea.
by Owen Borville
July 26, 2020
Biology
The puffin is a small seabird and is a unique design, with dark, a black colored head, back, and wings and a white chest and underside, orange webbed feet, and just an average of 10 inches tall.
Environment
Puffins spend most of their lives around the sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean near Europe or North America, either on the waves or swimming. Predators of puffins include the gulls. Puffins only come on land to breed and nest and therefore live around coastal areas.
Beak Color and Ability
Puffin's large, sharp, colorful beaks have unique striped layers of bright and dark colors and change color during the year. In the winter, the beak is dull grey while it changes to a bright orange in the spring. The outer layer of the beak sheds after the fall season, leaving it dull-colored but turns back to bright orange by spring. Scientists believe that the colorful beaks help the puffin attract mates during the breeding season in the spring. These carnivores eat small fish. Puffins can hold more than 10 fish in their beaks at a time, more than most birds, and enough to feed their young. Their beaks and tongues were designed to carry many fish as their tongues have a coarse structure while its mouth has spikes that help keep the fish stuck in the puffin's beak. A puffin once set a record in Britain for carrying 62 fish at one time.
Athletic Ability of Puffins in Flying and Swimming
Puffins look like penguins, but these puffins can fly. Puffins are strong flyers and flap their wings 400 times per minute, and fly 88 km per hour (55 miles per hour). Puffins are also great swimmers, as their webbed feet and wings allow them to dive 60 meters underwater in search of fish for about 30 seconds. Puffins use their wings to both fly and to swim underwater.
Finding Home Puzzles Scientists
Puffins have unique ways of finding home. After hatching and growing for a while, a young puffin leaves home for the ocean for several years. Then it returns home to its birth spot and breeding colony and sometimes nests there. Adult breeding puffins return to the same location every spring to breed again with the same partner. Scientists are not sure how puffins find home but possibly use a variety of sensory abilities to sense magnetic fields, stars, sounds, smells, and vision. This is a problem for evolution. If puffins could not find home, they could not find their breeding colonies to reproduce. Puffins also somehow find their same partner to mate.
Breeding and Nesting Behavior
Puffins gather on coasts and islands in large colonies to breed and are usually monogamous. When courting, puffins rub and strike their beaks together. Puffins build a nest in the ground and lay their egg, just one per year, while both parents help incubate the egg for five or six weeks. Puffins don't build a typical nest like most birds but dig a hole in the ground about three feet with their beak and webbed feet. Puffins also find secure spots between rocks on coastal cliffs to make a nesting site with easy access to the sea. Breeding colonies of puffins make chattering noises, but these puffins are silent when out to sea.
