What is puffin season?

Each year, puffins return to the Farnes to breed. This is generally between April and late July with the peak breeding season being in May and June. For the remainder of the year, the birds fly out to sea, overwintering on the water, only returning to land each year for a short window to breed and raise their young.

Do puffins make nests?

Nest Description Atlantic Puffins dig a shallow hole or burrow into the ground with their bill and feet. Both sexes share the task, with the male typically doing more excavation than the female. On rocky islands they make a nest under a boulder or within a crevice among the rocks.

How often do puffins lay eggs?

Puffins lay just one egg per year—and usually with the same mate. Like some penguins, both parents take turns incubating the egg and caring for the chick.

What do puffins do in the winter?

“Puffins normally survive very well, and suddenly we had two years when they did not,” he said. Over the winter, the birds undergo their main moult in which they lose their wing feathers, making them flightless and vulnerable to adverse conditions, such as storms or poor food supplies.

Where do puffins go in the summer?

From April to July, the puffin makes its home on islands and cliff tops around our coast. Once the season is done, the puffins will leave, heading out into the Bay of Biscay and beyond where they spend the winter months bobbing about on the rough seas.

Where do puffins nest?

burrows
Where do Puffins live? Puffins nest in burrows in the ground. The males dig the burrow using their bill and feet to push the soil out behind them. Puffins often use existing burrows made by rabbits.

What is a group of Atlantic puffins called?

A group of puffins can be known by a range of names – a colony, a circus, a puffinry, a gathering, a burrow, or an improbability.

What is baby puffin called?

A baby puffin, puffling, is born approximately 40 days after the egg is laid.

What eats a puffin?

The greatest natural predator of the puffin is the Great Black-backed Gull. This gull can catch adult puffins in mid-air. The Great Black-backed Gull will circle high above a puffin colony and pick out a solitary puffin and catch it from behind by dive bombing the unwary puffin.

What is a group of puffins called?