Scilly's Nature Scilly's Special Species Puffin The puffin is the smallest and most colourful of the three members of the auk family that breeds here on Scilly. It is probably our most popular seabird, but it can only be seen here from April to July. It has a black crown, pale grey cheek patches, white under parts and a broad boldly marked red and black bill and orange legs. It remarkably colourful bill and waddling gait has given rise to nick names such as ‘sea parrot’ or ‘clown of the sea’. It is thought that the birds' colourful bill and feet help puffins assess potential mates. This bond can then last a lifetime. Its Latin name Fratercula arctica means ‘little brother of the north’ and comes from the medieval for ‘friar’. This a reference to its black and white plumage which resembles monastic robes. The puffin has a direct fast flight reaching speeds of up to 88kmph (55mph). Its short stubby wings beat at 400 beats/minute! Puffins arrive in Scilly in April and come ashore to nest in colonies on some of our larger uninhabited islands. Once on land the pair reunite with the colony. It is at this time that some pairs exhibit a special behaviour know as ‘billing’ where the two birds waggle their heads from side to side rubbing their bills together. This seems to be an important element of the courtship behaviour. Puffins generally nest underground in a burrow or crevice, often reusing the same nest site year after year. Once the site has been given a spring clean, the female lays a single egg in a nest constructed of seaweed, feathers and grass. After the egg is safely in the nest both parents take turns to incubate. It usually takes about 40 days to hatch. Once the chick, known as a ‘puffling’ hatches, the pair then take it in turns to bring back food several times a day. This will be small fish such as sand eels, herring, capelin and hake. The Puffin catches these fish by diving down to depths as much as 60m. They do this by flapping their wings to ‘fly’ through the water to pursue their prey, using their feet to steer. The puffin is able to carry several fish in its beak at one time. They do this by pushing the fish to the back of their mouths using a specially adapted grooved tongue, securing the fish in place with ridges at the top of the bill. This adaptation allows them to keep their mouth open to catch more fish without loosing any. On average they will carry around ten fish at a time, but can carry many more - 62 is the largest number recorded! At first the parent birds will forage close to the nest site, but as the puffling grows it can be left for longer periods of time. This allows the parents to go on longer fishing trip, sometimes up to 100km out to sea. After about six weeks the puffling is ready to leave the burrow. They do this under the cover of darkness to avoid predators such as great black-backed gulls. Pufflings haven’t yet learnt to fly, so launch themselves off the rocks into the sea where they immediately start to swim out to the open sea. At the end of the breeding season in late July, the adult puffins also head back out to the Atlantic. There they under go a partial moult, losing their brightly coloured faces and markings on the bill, with the bill actually reducing in size and shape. In the wild, puffins can live for up to 20 years. Here, during their breeding season, the main threats can come from below water where seals and large fish have been known to take puffins. The biggest avian threats are great black-backed gulls and skuas. Puffins choose to nest on remote islands to avoid predation by ground-based mammals, from rats to cats. Conservation status Europe is home to around 90% of the global population of puffins, and in 2015 the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded it status from ‘least concern’ to ‘vulnerable’ due to rapid population decline. This is believed to be due to a number of different factors such as increased predation from introduced mammalian predators at some of its breeding grounds, overfishing, pollution and rises in sea temperature. They are adapted to living in sea temperatures of 0-20°C, specialising in catching fish who are also adapted to these colder temperatures. Scilly is at the southern edge of the puffin breeding range. Although historical records suggest that numbers have declined in Scilly (with our population once numbering in the thousands), recent surveys have shown numbers to have been relating stable at between 150 and 200 pairs. If you want to spot this charismatic little bird one of the special wildlife watching boat trips will give you your best chance.