What do puffins do

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Thanks sooooo much I needed this for giving out feedback to my fourth grade students. Im a sixth grader. I love puffins. The other day I won the gloustershire nature quiz finals and the trophy was a puffin! Ask a parent or guardian to check it out first and remember to stay safe online. See all. Puffin facts! Top ten puffin facts 1. Love animals? Save Avatar Randomize. Home Is Good Get messy, explore and appreciate nature, all from the safety of home!

Meet the penguins of the Falkland Islands! Join us on an adventure to the Falkland Islands to meet five fab species of penguin! Puffins are very social birds, forming immense colonies together. The largest documented colony is made up of Atlantic Puffins, located in the Westmann Isles, part of Iceland. In scientists estimated there were 4 million individual birds, with 1 million nests between them.

When aggravated, a puffin will puff itself up, spreading its wings and opening its beak and stamping its feet to make itself look more fearsome. In an actual fight, the two opponents will lock beaks and then beat at each other with their wings and feet.

The puffin guarding its burrow will often have a soldier-like stance, standing erect, with its head down, making slow and exaggerated movements with its feet. This allows it to join the community and not be chased off of solid ground after a long flight.

Puffins flap their wings up to times a minute when flying, making the wings a blur. They can achieve flying speeds of nearly 90km an hour. Puffins mature sexually around 4 or 5 years old. Once paired off, puffins will generally stay with the same mate for life, returning to the burrow they dug together for subsequent mating seasons.

The burrows are dug into soft soil, or are made from pre-existing holes in rocky shorelines. In some cases puffins have been known to commandeer rabbit burrows. Puffins lay one egg. If that initial egg is lost early enough in the breeding season, then sometimes a couple will produce another. The eggs are white, and both parents take turns incubating it with their brood patch — a patch of featherless skin on their underside that allows heat to be transferred.

The egg hatches somewhere between 5 and 8 weeks. The baby is finally able to leave the burrow after 7 or 8 weeks. The Great Black-backed Gull is the greatest predator Puffins face in the natural world. For eight months of the year, puffins live on the ocean, happily bobbing up and down on the waves. These pint-sized birds are well adapted for sea life and enjoy devouring fish. When the warmer spring weather arrives, they head to land for breeding — usually around May to August.

Unfortunately for puffins their good looks fade away at some point each year. One of their most distinct features, the brightly coloured parrot-like beak, loses its technicolour in winter. But when breeding season starts on land, their vibrant appearance returns in time for them to attract a mate. Ever wondered how they got this nickname? Partly because of their colourful faces, but mostly for their flying skills.

More specifically, their landing and take offs. They can even reach speeds of 80kmph.