But we've always wanted to be able to measure chick survival and feeding more carefully. Usually we check 60 nests in a colony once a week to see whether eggs hatch and chicks survive. They try to catch the healthiest (high in protein and fat) fish for their chick that are within reach. Puffins may fly 20 miles in search of fish for their young and doing so burns a lot of energy, limiting just how far they can venture from their nesting island without jeopardizing their own health. Each pair typically lays a single egg during a breeding season, and the parents take turns watching the egg or chick and flying to catch food. Puffins are colonial breeders, gathering in large groups to dig nesting burrows on coastal or island cliffs. So each spring for the past forty years, I have migrated from Ithaca, New York to mid-coast Maine to observe the birds during their breeding season. We still need to keep a close eye on puffins to learn how warming seawater and other aspects of climate change are affecting their populations and lifestyles. Their recovery took 40 years of dedicated conservation work-but the work isn't over. In the late 19th century, spotting such overladen beaks was rare, as hunting for food and feathers had depleted most puffin colonies along the Maine coast. Puffins are famous for loading their colorful beaks with a dozen or more fish and winging home to feed their solitary, ravenous chick. Not the usual flying fish that skim over tropical seas, but fish dangling from the beaks of flying puffins. They may use visual reference points, smells, sounds, the Earth's magnetic fields-or perhaps even the stars.In recent years, I have taken to watching flying fish along the Maine coast. It is unclear how these birds navigate back to their home grounds. Puffin couples often reunite at the same burrow site each year. When a chick hatches, its parents take turns feeding it by carrying small fish back to the nest in their relatively spacious bills. Females lay a single egg, and both parents take turns incubating it. The birds often select precipitous, rocky cliff tops to build their nests, which they line with feathers or grass. Iceland is the breeding home of perhaps 60 percent of the world's Atlantic puffins. Puffin Colonies and BreedingĪtlantic puffins land on North Atlantic seacoasts and islands to form breeding colonies each spring and summer. By flapping their wings up to 400 times per minute they can reach speeds of 55 miles an hour. In the air, puffins are surprisingly fleet flyers. Puffins typically hunt small fish like herring or sand eels. They steer with rudderlike webbed feet and can dive to depths of 200 feet, though they usually stay underwater for only 20 or 30 seconds. They are excellent swimmers that use their wings to stroke underwater with a flying motion. These birds live most of their lives at sea, resting on the waves when not swimming. Atlantic puffins have penguin-like coloring but they sport a colorful beak that has led some to dub them the “sea parrot.” The beak fades to a drab gray during the winter and blooms with color again in the spring-suggesting that it may be attractive to potential mates.