Puffins Come Ashore All Photos: USFWS Birdwatchers are starting to flock to islands off the Canadian and Alaskan coasts and a couple of islands off Maine, in hopes of viewing nesting puffins. Here's why! It's Nesting Time for Puffins Puffins stay in deep waters all year—except when they come to rocky islands to nest. These adorable little fish catchers actually dig their own nest burrows on the islands by using their bill as a pickax and webbed feet and sharp claws to dig. They throw the soil backwards as they burrow down two to four feet. (Click to enlarge the photo for a better look.) Puffin nests burrowed in the hillsides After the females lay one egg, the pair takes turns incubating it. The egg is very safe deep inside the burrow, so sometimes both the male and female take a break for a couple of hours each day to sit outside with their neighbors. It takes a puffin egg about six weeks to hatch. Then the work begins! One ornithologist named Lockley who studied puffins estimated that each baby eats about its weight in fish every day, and that the parents feed it about 2000 fish during the time that it is in the burrow. They kill each fish with sharp "pincers" at the tip of the bill, and then hold it against the serrations in their upper bill with their round tongue while they catch more fish. Each puffin parent can carry up to 30 little fish in its beak at a time. Adult puffins Hello, Pufflings Several weeks after the baby hatches, the parents' bodies get ready to molt. They must return to the sea before they lose their flight feathers. So they leave the baby safe in its burrow, with a lot of fishy fat on its body. After a week or so, the puffling gets so hungry it sets out on its own to find the sea. It can't fly yet, so it is in danger from gulls and other predators. Therefore, it waddles out of the burrow at night. When it sees the sparkling ocean, it flutters its wings as hard as it can and leaps from its cliff. In a week or two it will be able to fly, but will stay out over water until it's grown up and ready to nest itself. People can approach fairly close to puffin and other seabird nest colonies without disturbing them as long as they are careful where they step—and careful to give the birds enough space to keep them from being frightened. Children to the Rescue Bruce McMillan wrote Nights of the Pufflings, a true story about baby Atlantic Puffins and the children of Heimaey, Iceland. When it's time to leave their nests, "the young birds become confused by the lights of the town and land on the streets instead of on the water. The children rescue them from danger and release them the next day at the water's edge," says McMillan. Try This! Journaling Question What questions would you ask the children of Heimaey or author Bruce McMillan if you could interview them? Make a list after you read the book and/or check out photos from Mr. McMillan's 1997 trip back to Iceland: A Visit To Heimaey Island In Iceland When have you helped an animal in need? How do you feel about it now? Would you like to take part in the puffin rescue? Copyright 2004 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form