Dive into Life, Be Adaptable and Stand Together with Your Friends

Puffins are small, brightly-coloured seabirds with distinctive black and white markings and large, thick beaks. Their colourful beaks and their short chubby stature make them a winsome sight to see.  Puffins live in the North Atlantic.  They spend most of their time at sea, but they breed on coastal cliffs or on islands offshore. 

In Europe, Puffins nest south to the Brittany Coast of France, northwards to Iceland, Greenland and Northern Russia.  In North America, they nest from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Northeastern United States.  Sixty percent of the world’s puffins are found in Iceland and about 350 to 400 thousand puffins breed in eastern Canada. 

Atlantic puffins are well-adapted to a life lived at sea. They can even drink seawater.  They expel the excess salt out of glands in their nostrils.  They have bodies adapted to swimming.  They use their wings to ‘fly’ underwater and steer with their feet to control the direction.  They hunt a variety of small fish. They are carnivores and eat squids, crustaceans, zooplankton and mollusks. A puffin can carry lots of fish in its bill at one time. Their spiny palates and raspy tongues enable them to firmly grasp 10 to 12 fish at a time.  

Atlantic Puffins are silent at sea but on land males often make a piglike grunt sound while flicking their head back to attract a female.  Puffins reach breeding age at five to six years of age and they usually pair for life.  They also return to the same next site each year to raise more chicks.  Each year they produce one chick known as a puffling.  The parents are kept busy fishing to keep their chick well-fed and satisfied.  The two parents of a single chick take turns bringing food back to the nest.  Puffins will often live for 20 years. 

Puffins are social birds and can often be seen in large flocks on cliffs and in the ocean.  They don’t show any fear towards humans and approaching them closely seems to be easy, but they are still wild animals.  Touching a puffin is very harmful to them.  Their feathers have a special protectant oil that they need to keep their feathers watertight while swimming.  Touching them can remove that oil.  

According to legend, Icelanders sometimes eat the seabird puffin.  In many tourist restaurants in Reykjavik, you can actually order a plate of puffin.  The meat is dark and the flavour has been described as “a fishier version of chicken”.

These small Puffins have fewer native land predators than expected due to the fact that they nest high on the tops of cliffs and in burrows that are more than 3 feet underground. Gulls, hawks, eagles and foxes are the most common land predators of adult Puffins and their young. 

The main threat to puffins is the changes in distribution and numbers of small fish. Pollution is also a serious hazard.  Oil leaked from the Torrey Canyon in 1967 killed 85% of the French puffins. 

A fun fact about puffins is they like to kiss each other when they renew their friendship.  Actually this is called billing.  When two or more puffins rub their beaks together it is sort of like puffins kissing each other.  They approach each other while wagging their heads from side to side and then they rattle their beaks together.  They seem delighted to see an old friend. 

These are the sayings on the bookmark I found called ‘Advice from a Puffin’.

• Dive into life

• Find warmth among friends

• Always bring enough to share

• Be adaptable

• Stand together

• It’s not all black and white

• Keep your cool!

Here are my comments about each of these sayings.  

• Dive into life - Make a start, dive in and become enthusiastically involved in whatever you are doing.

• Find warmth among friends - When we see our friends we instinctively make them feel welcome with a smile and a warm greeting.  

• Always bring enough to share - This makes me think of the puffin bringing back 10-12 fish in its beak. The parent is bringing enough to share with its chick. Sharing with others is an essential skill to build healthy, strong relationships and contribute to the well-being and happiness of those around us.

• Be adaptable - Adaptability expands your capacity to handle change and to deal with new situations.  

• Stand together - Be loyal to one another. 

• It’s not all black and white - Like puffins who are black and white, their bright orange beaks stand out.  It is not all black and white - there are different perspectives and many shades of grey. 

• Keep your cool! - Don’t freak out.  Keep your composure and remain calm even in difficult situations. 

Dive into life, be adaptable and stand together with your friends.

# living life abundantly # published author  # travelling tuesdays