A rare opportunity for Maine puffin lovers to volunteer helping puffins. The Project Puffin Visitor Center is seeking volunteers to assist its operations in June, July, and August 2009, during which volunteers will be given the opportunity to take a puffin-watching cruise. Selected volunteers may get to spend a week or more on an island with puffins!!!

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You can read more at the Project Puffin webpage.

This is the story of a professor who went to visit the Tatoosh Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca off the coast of Washington State. Here lives the tufted puffin. Read his story, see his photographs… you won’t be sorry you did.

Click here to read on.

I received my May/June issue for Bird Watcher’s Digest magazine and was delighted to see an article about puffins in it. You can pick this issue up at the local book store or anywhere that sells magazines probably.  Or you can read part of that article here.

The author tells of her adventure seeing the Atlantic Puffin in the United States. And this she did…

I never would have guessed that the three puffins were so different in size. It helped to see the difference in size—so I decided to make the graphic below so you could see for yourself.

Atlantic Puffins are about 10 to 11 1/2 inches (25-29 cm)

Horned Puffins are bigger by 5 inches — 15 inches tall (38 cm)

And the Tufted Puffins are the biggest puffins at 16 inches tall (44 cm)

Puffins travel in large packs but they are only around for about five months a year—going out to sea the rest of the time. So, catch them while you can generally March to July—these months may vary depending on where you are in the world. They only come in to mate, nest, incubate their egg (yes, generally they only have one) in the burrow and then they are off!

Both sexes incubate for 39-43 days with shifts of about 32 hours each, and the puffling is hatched with a covering of down. At about two months old the young puffin goes off by itself. Back to the sea for the puffin family—although not necessarily together.

We have now added a Teacher Resource Page with worksheets you can print out and use in your classrooms. We intend on updating this often. Please let us know what you think at puffinpalooza @ gmail dot com.

CLICK HERE to visit the new Teacher Resource Page

This is an excellent short video about puffins. It has excellent footage of puffins–about 40 of them! They show the cute head nodding and grunting, billing—it is really worth the watch. It is under ten minutes so it won’t take long—go ahead watch!

Puffin Behavior Video

Double Header – Puffin Guardians

Originally uploaded by idg

These are so cute! The photograph was worth sharing. Thanks to idg on Flickr. =) I also happened upon this great website because of this photo — the website is managed by Magdalen Green and someone named Iain. It is all about puffins. We can appreciate that can’t we?

The site is worth a read. It has some great photos as well both to look at and to purchase. =)

Thanks Magdalen and Iain for sharing your love of puffins with the world!

Tufted Puffins (IMG_0272)

Originally uploaded by S_w_i_d_e_r_s_k_i

The first of the portly, colorful seagoing birds showed up the first week of April after eight months floating and diving on open seas, said Nala Cardillo, the coordinator of the Haystack Rock Awareness Program.They nest and raise their chicks each spring and summer at Haystack Rock.

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Which bird is always out of breath?

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A puffin!