The next post will be about none other than the official bird of Newfoundland and Labrador: the Atlantic Puffin! If there were a short list of the most photogenic birds in North America (possibly the world) puffins would definitely be on it.
Needless to say, It has been a dream of mine to photograph these birds for quite some time now. Most of the captures in this series were taken from Elliston Newfoundland, an amazing spot to observe and photograph these birds from land. I’m really excited to share the encounters @elizabeth__bruno and I had, and to learn more about another amazing seabird!
There are 4 different kinds of Puffins in the world. The Tufted Puffin, Horned Puffin, Rhinoceros Auklet, and Atlantic Puffin. The Atlantic Puffin is the smallest of the 4, weighing about the same as a can of pop (soda), and measuring around 25cm in length. There is no denying how unique Puffins are in their appearance, especially in comparison to other North American birds. This unique look has gained them the nicknames “sea parrots” or even “clowns of the sea”. This capture was taken the 2nd time a brave puffin flew onto the ledge where we were observing the colony from. The sun had just started to get low in the sky, and the island in front was casting a beautiful shadow over the ocean water behind the Puffin in the photo. To me it almost looks like a shot at twilight, and really helps to pull the Puffin out from the background. You can just spend hours looking at all the ornate details featured on this beautiful birds, and like many things in nature, it is a perfect harmony of beauty and design. I’m excited to share the incredibly things this bird is capable of in upcoming posts!
After @elizabeth__bruno and I had been shooting the puffins for a while at the typical vantage point for this location, we noticed that dozens of puffins would fly off the island and float around in groups on the water close by. We decided to carefully find a way to get lower to ocean in order to capture these birds at eye level. We managed to make our way down some rocky ledges to the waters edge. We weren’t sure how the puffins would react to us, so we used some protruding rocks to hide behind. I also put my rain jacket hood on to further camouflage against the dark grey rocks. It took a good 45 minutes of waiting patiently, but eventually small groups of puffins would float by us. Some caught us off guard as they popped out of the water unexpectedly like corks only feet away! They would occasionally make eye contact with us but didn’t seem to be very bothered by our presence. Most of the photos we see of puffins are on land at their nesting sites. That’s because it is the easiest time to photograph them, but the reality is, these birds spend the majority of their life bobbing around at sea, far from grass and land, only setting foot on land to breed. When you watch these birds swim up close you can clearly see just how well suited they are to life at sea. The ocean is is definitely their home!
If there were a short list of the most photogenic birds in North America (possibly the world) puffins would definitely be on it.
@elizabeth__bruno and I had been shooting the puffins for a while at the typical vantage point for this location, we noticed that dozens of puffins would fly off the island and float around in groups on the water close by. We decided to carefully find a way to get lower to ocean in order to capture these birds at eye level. We managed to make our way down some rocky ledges to the waters edge. We weren’t sure how the puffins would react to us, so we used some protruding rocks to hide behind. I also put my rain jacket hood on to further camouflage against the dark grey rocks. It took a good 45 minutes of waiting patiently, but eventually small groups of puffins would float by us. Some caught us off guard as they popped out of the water unexpectedly like corks only feet away! They would occasionally make eye contact with us but didn’t seem to be very bothered by our presence. Most of the photos we see of puffins are on land at their nesting sites. That’s because it is the easiest time to photograph them, but the reality is, these birds spend the majority of their life bobbing around at sea, far from grass and land, only setting foot on land to breed. When you watch these birds swim up close you can clearly see just how well suited they are to life at sea. The ocean is is definitely their home!
One of the most unexpected things I’ve learned about puffins is that their beautiful colorful beak is actually an outer layer that grows out only during matting season and later is shed, leaving a duller smaller beak! Just this year scientists discovered that the grooves of a puffins breeding beak are actually florescent and glow under UV light! Puffin eyes can also see wavelengths in the UV side of the spectrum, so it’s anyone’s guess at this point why their beaks have this feature. The initial theory is that it is another way to attract their mate and possibly to help identify their mates when they head back to the breeding colony. A final amazing attribute of puffin beaks are the spiny plates found inside. These plates along with their raspy tongue allow the puffin to firmly hold multiple fish in their mouth at once (10-12 on average!). This ability allows them to feed their young whole fish instead of having to regurgitate leftovers as many other seabirds have to do.
After Puffins have spent the winter out at sea, they will journey back to their breeding colony. Before approaching the actual nesting site, they will gather off shore for a sort of meet & greet. After exchanging greetings with other members of the colony they will head to their nest on land and be reunited with their mate. From this point until their chick is ready to leave the nest, puffins will display an amazing sense of community, which was non-existant for the majority of their time at sea. We saw many puffins being very playful with each other, much more than we noticed with the Northern Gannets. Perhaps it’s because unlike Gannets, puffins don’t stay in a colony during the winter months, so they haven’t had as long to get on each others nerves haha. Puffins are very expressive birds. I had to capture this interaction between two puffins on camera. They looked like 2 people having a serious chat about something important. I also think they both look very Penguin-like in this shot for some reason. Anyways happy Sunday, and happy long weekend for my fellow Canadian friends that get Monday off.
I just love the way Puffins interact with each other, even while in flight; often making glances, especially when they are about to land. We noticed that many of the Puffins we observed hover for a short period of time above their intended landing site before making landfall. I’ve read that puffins have difficulty landing, so I’m guessing this might be the reason (if someone knows of another reason please comment below). It is probably also due to the fact that Puffins wings are too small to glide in the air, they have to continually flap their wings to stay in the air. However, while their wings are small, they can actually travel very fast at speeds up to 88km/h (55mp/h! It is quite a sight to see this little bird flying overhead like a mini bullet. All this speed requires the Puffin to flap very fast (up to 300 beats per minute!).
It may look like these puffins are sitting on top of their nests, with their cute little eggs incubating underneath, but If you thought this, you would be wrong. If you were wrong don’t worry, so was I. Just before leaving for our trip, I learned that Puffins actually dig tunnels in the ground with their beak and sharp claws on the ends of their webbed feet. They use these tunnels as a home for their eggs, and later young hatched chicks (affectionately known as “Pufflings”). Most burrows are 2-3 feet long and include a small washroom area off to the side. Even Puffins returning to the same nesting site will make some home decor renovations each year. As with the Northern Gannets, Puffin pairs will take turns incubating their egg. One partner will go off looking for food while the other guards the burrow from predators. Puffins only lay one egg per year, so for it’s parents, one snatched egg would be a devastating blow to months of care and nurturing.
To be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on here but it made for an interesting shot. If I were to guess it seems the Puffin in the back is asserting some kind of dominance over the one in the front which is in a more submissive stance. Then again, one frame sometimes can be misleading. Either way, it’s fun to watch how expressive Puffins can be with each other. This shot was taken later in the evening during golden hour. One Puffin landed in front of us, with another soon to follow. Before long we got about 4 or 5 puffins waddling around together, only feet from us, it was quite the memorable experience. Puffins’ appearance and personalities really make them once of the most endearing animals I have seen yet.
They say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. In the case of these Puffins they have no choice. Herring Gulls gather on nearby rock formation and routinely hover over the puffin nesting colony, occasionally landing and pestering the puffins. The gulls are significantly larger than the puffin adults, and will occasionally steal their fish catches from their beaks. There was an interesting study conducted on Great Island in Newfoundland regarding the interactions of Puffins and Gulls. They found that when Puffins nested close to areas where Gulls nested, they were attacked less often. This was due to the fact that the high concentration of Gulls in the area would lead to fights among the Gulls themselves over who would steal the fish from the puffins. Puffins also modified their landing behaviors to land in groups, overwhelming the Gulls. The expression: there is safety in numbers sure holds true for Puffins.
Two Puffins sharing a special moment together at sunset.
We were so fortunate to have a good sized group of puffins land on our side of the viewing site late into the sunset, just before we left. They let us get quite close and were very playful with each other. If there were a channel like the fireplace channel showing puffins 24/7 I think I could spend hours watching them. Of course nothing beats seeing wildlife in person. Breathing in the ocean air, seeing the wildgrasses away in the wind, and the tips of the ocean waves shimmer in the evening light.
It’s interesting to watch puffins interact with each other because they are quite silent, most of their communication happens using body language. The loudest sound they make is actually while underground in their burrow. They make a low pitched sound, sort of resembling a chainsaw revving up. Another thing I found really interesting is how their comfort level around is humans increased with each additional puffin that landed on our side of the cliff. The first puffin stayed right on the edge of the cliff. After 1 or 2 more puffins came, they all started walking along the edge towards us, and after a group of them formed, the whole bunch just started going about their business as if we weren’t even there. I was quite surprised how tolerant they are of human considering they are at sea alone so many months of the year. Although, year after year they do return to the same nesting site, and I’m sure there is always a steady stream of camera wielding photographers trying to photograph them. .
As this puffin was basking in the light of the setting sun, I noticed something was different about it. The faces of most of the other puffins were almost pure white, while this one was visibly darker. At first I attributed it to some odd lighting, possibly shadows from the low angle of tue sunlight. But when I compared the shows of their puffin with others in the same group it was clear this one looked different. After some research, i found that juvenile puffins do have darker faces, so it’s possible this puffin may be a youngster of only a few years. Once pufflings are able to fly, they actually stay at sea until a few years old, when they will amazingly usually return to the same nesting site they were hatched at. A study in Scotland found that puffins sometimes will return to their nesting site a few years before reaching full sexual maturity. I’m thinking that might be the case with this one. If it is that young it still has a long life ahead of it, as puffins can live up to their mid 30s although the average lifespan is 20.
While @elizabeth__bruno was photographing this puffin, it grabbed a feather off the ground and started playing with it by holding into it with its beak. It was both adorable and neat to see an animal do something playful just for fun. It’s easy to look at wild animals and think of them as just survival machines, living meal to meal, but they also possess the capacity to be playful. It was hilarious to watch as this guy pose with the feather for the photographers, like a high fashion runway model.
I caught this little guy looking like he was trying to squeeze in a quick afternoon nap at the edge of a cliff. I’m sure catching fish from the ocean to feed your family is tough work.
The orange-yellow patch of skin at the base of their beak is called a “rosette” and actually serves an amazing purpose! Most birds can open their beaks from essentially a fixed hinge position so that the tip of the beak opens the most, and then as you get closer to the base, the space between the top and bottom decreases until you reach the base. This extra bit of skin in puffins is actually what the top and bottom beaks are attached too at the base and allows the puffin to open their beak both at the tip as well as at the base. This ability is probably why they can capture so many fish in their mouth at one time!
I hope you all enjoyed this puffin post as much as I did. These birds are a lot of fun to learn about, photograph, and observe. They are truly special and seeing them in person is an experience I hope everyone gets sometime in their life. Sadly in 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the status of the Atlantic Puffin from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable”. Then just this year, BirdLife International reported that the Atlantic puffin was threatened with extinction. Its numbers have been dropping in parts of Europe unfortunately.
