The horned-billed puffin has a gray face and a dull beak, but in summer the color of the beak becomes bright and the face turns white. Also, fine black patterns appear on the eyes, and they have cute eyelashes.
Classification and evolution of puffins
Puffin is a small species of seabird that is closely related to other puffins such as the guille. Known to have a brightly colored triangular beak, puffins are the most distinctive of all seabirds, and although they are not considered endangered, puffins are extinct in many areas that were once abundant. They resemble penguins in form and appearance, but puffins are able to fly very well and reach speeds of more than 50 mph in a short period of time.
The appearance of puffins
Puffins are small birds with thick black and white plumage, which helps keep them warm in the cold conditions of the northernmost part of the Northern Hemisphere. They have a black neck, back and wings, white lower body and white feathers on both sides of the face. In the cold winter months, their feet and legs are dark yellow and turn bright orange during the breeding season. The puffin is a bird with a broad, flat beak with a large, triangular beak known for its bright markings. Like their legs and feet, puffins' beaks are brighter in color during the warm breeding season and duller during the cold winter months.
Puffin behavior and lifestyle
Like other species of puffins (and in fact many others), puffins are highly social animals that live on grassy cliff tops and form a huge herd that can hold up to 2 million puffins. In addition to being fast and efficient in the air, puffins are incredibly skilled and agile swimmers, diving to depths of up to 60 meters for up to two minutes at a time (although the average dive time is usually only around 20 seconds) to maximize their chances of catching a large number of fish for themselves and their cubs. During the winter months, puffins spend most of their time at sea hunting, sometimes miles off land, before returning to the cliffs to breed during the warmer months, making it difficult for scientists to fully understand the condition of the species.
Puffin breeding and life cycle
Puffins have an annual breeding season throughout the warm summer from April to mid-to-late August, which is practiced in large flocks on soft, grassy cliff tops. By using their shovel-like beaks and webbed feet with pointed claws to dig up unwanted soil, they are able to dig holes in the ground that are more than a meter deep and several meters long to keep their precious eggs or pups safe from predators, such as seagulls. Female puffins lay one white egg at a time, hatched by both parents and six weeks later in the burrow, with the chicks covered in medium-brown feathers. The chicks are cared for and fed by both parents, who use their beaks to bring back the chicks from the sea until the chicks are independent and leave the nest at about two months of age. Puffins breed between the ages of 4 and 5 and live up to 20 years in the wild, with some even living to 30 years.
Puffin's diet and prey
Although puffins are omnivores, they eat only meat, consist mainly of small fish, and replenish zooplankton during the cold winter months. Puffins prey mainly on polyps, capelin fish, herring and occasionally squid, molluscs or crustaceans, which hunt below the surface on average dives of about 20 seconds per dive. Due to the layer of spines found on the upper part of the beak and on the tongue, their uniquely shaped beaks are also well suited for carrying fish.
Puffin's natural predator
Despite their relatively small size, puffins feed on them less than thought as they nest at cliff tops and in caves more than 3 feet underground.
Seagulls, eagles, and foxes are the most common land predators of adult puffins and their young. In areas closer to human habitation, puffins are also preyed upon by domestic cats and dogs, while mice often target their eggs hidden in underground burrows. At sea, puffins are preyed upon by large birds such as skuas and large gulls, which compete for the same food as puffins.
However, the biggest threat to puffins today is the impact of humans and their growing activities on their natural habitat. Coastal development, tourism, oil spills, and the introduction of non-native predators into their natural habitats have led to a dramatic decline in their populations over historically vast natural ranges.
Cold knowledge of puffins
Puffins are excellent swimmers, but are also incredibly fast in the air and are able to take off from land or water very quickly when needed. Puffins are very fast, they are able to fly at speeds of up to 88 km / h in a short time, their small wings flutter 300-400 times per minute.
Puffins are often seen with rows of small fish lined up along their brightly colored triangular beaks, especially during the breeding season, when they fish to feed their young. Traveling to and from the breeding grounds 10 km away is usually an exhausting process for this small bird, so they usually collect as many fish as possible at once. Although it is known that they usually bring back 4 to 30 small fish, such as sand eels, there are records that they stuff as many as 62 small fish in their mouths at the most.
Puffin's relationship with humans
Ever since humans inhabited the northernmost part of the world, they have been hunting puffins, both for their meat and for their eggs. However, as more and more catches increased, puffin populations began to decline dramatically, leading to the extinction of many puffin communities in the Northern Hemisphere. Overall, humans have also played a huge role in disturbing their natural habitats, with increasing coastal development and overtourism, bringing less land and more trash to these little birds. Another big issue is the impact of fishing, which has led to a severe decline in the natural prey species of puffins, which, combined with increased marine activity and more destructive oil spills, have led to the complete disappearance of puffins in many areas that were once abundant.