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Puffin Watching Season
“You can't trust just any old person who comes along with a hundred puffins and a pretty face!”
~ Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
Words to the wise! Often hailed as the cutest birds on earth, puffins have earned a host of charming nicknames—including “clowns of the ocean” and “sea parrots”—thanks to their bright beaks, expressive eyes, and comically dignified waddles. Their gatherings have equally delightful names: a group of puffins may be called a circus, an improbability, or even a puffinry!
Looking like a whimsical blend of duck, penguin, and parrot, the Atlantic puffin leads a life of seasonal duality—silent and solitary at sea for most of the year, but quite the performer on land during breeding season. Males use a curious courtship display of head-flicking and piglike grunting to woo a mate, and in their nesting burrows, they emit a surprisingly guttural growl—described by researchers as sounding like a muffled toy chainsaw!
One of the most astonishing discoveries in recent years? Under ultraviolet light, their already-vivid beaks glow with a dazzling fluorescent blue, a trait believed to play a role in attracting mates. Nature’s own built-in blacklight rave!
In light of all this avian flair, it’s not hard to imagine that this bold tartan would be just the thing to turn heads in the puffin world—the ultimate fashion statement for catching the glad eye! 🖤 ❤️ 💛 🧡 🤍 🐧 🐧 🐧
By designer Carol A.L. Martin, this was inspired by the Atlantic puffin, a small and colourful bird sometimes known as the "clown of the sea" or the "sea parrot" found along the coastlines of the North Atlantic Ocean. The largest puffin population in the world is in Iceland.
The Atlantic puffin, also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird found in Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Newfoundland and many North Atlantic islands, and as far south as Maine in the west and the west coast of Ireland and parts of the United Kingdom in the east.
The scientific name Fratercula comes from the Medieval Latin fratercula, for "little friar," a reference believed to refer the black and white plumage which resembles monastic robes.
Puffins are wonderful flyers, flapping their wings up to 400 times a minute and speeding through the air at up to 88km an hour. Not only that, they are excellent swimmers as well. Using their webbed feet as a rudder, puffins can dive down 60m under water in search of their favourite fish.
In spring and summer, thousands of puffins gather in colonies on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic Ocean to breed. They usually pair up with the same partner as previous years - some breeding pairs have been together for 20 years!
For more about the Atlantic puffin, click the puffin!