I came across this super cute little puffin, Bempton the Puffin, handmade by Feltmeupdesigns on Etsy.com and had to share with you…

According to the artisan who makes these,

This little puffin is made from 100% organically farmed merino wool tops. Also, this is not a toy and not suitable for children under the age of 12. May differ slightly from pictured but guaranteed just as cute.

This is a hatched puffin egg. The beauty of it is mostly in tact. A beautiful speckled puffin egg:

(Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28190483@N07/3650595298/)

Both parents take care of the puffin eggs. The male puffins build a nest for the female. Then the female lays generally 1-5 eggs. Puffin parents are very protective guarding their puffin eggs diligently until they hatch approximately 40-43 days later.

We simply can never have ENOUGH puffin coloring pages, can we? I found some new free puffin coloring pages on various sites today. You can download them, print them out and color them. You can even send them to me after scanning them in or email me below to get my mailing address to mail them once they are finished and I will post them to Puffinpalooza. I will do this for an entire class even! The offer is open for anyone interested!

Puffin Coloring Page from Learning Treasures

Click on this small picture to open the page where you can print this to color!

Puffin Coloring page from First School

Click on the image to open the coloring page to print!

 

Puffin Coloring page by My Free Colouring Pages

Click on the image to open the page to print!

Puffin coloring page by Kid Zone

Click on the image to open the puffin coloring page to print!

 

Here are some more puffin coloring pages and some activity worksheets for teachers and classrooms — all by ABC Teach

Puffin coloring page

Click on the image to open the puffin activity page to print!

More puffin activities from ABC Teach click below… (more…)

My dearest friends went to the Point Defiance Zoo again today and spent a lot of time with the puffins! They had so much fun. Apparently, the little puffins were very friendly today. One came right up to the barrier, so close they could have picked it up! They did not though because that would set a bad example and could harm the little bird. The puffins at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington are Tufted Puffins. And they are adorable! The gave these pictures and videos to me so I can share with all of you!

You can see more puffin videos on our youtube channel  — The Puffinpalooza official youtube channel!

Look at me! I'm cute! (Tufted Puffin at the Point Defiance Zoo in July 2010)

(more…)

Here is a great video of puffins eating at the Seattle Aquarium, it is a free-for-all. They swim so fast underwater!

Tufted Puffins are not found in the UK or possibly the whole of Europe. So imagine the surprise of the British people who saw one off the coast on September 16th at the Oare Marshes reserve in the Swale Estuary near Faversham about 1 1/2 hours east of London.

This little bird, the clown-of-the-sea, is definitely far from home in a place very different from the natural habitat of puffins which consists of rocky sea cliffs at the Oare Marshes. His unexpected appearance begs the question, how did the find his way to the UK?

It seems the sighting of the Tufted Puffin is as exciting for the British as it is for us puffin lovers—inspiring people to travel from hours away to see it for the first time in a place it never visits. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for people in the UK.

It reminds me how lucky I am to be living in a state where the Tufted Puffin feels at home, Washington State. But for how much longer? With global warming, natural predators and a lack of funds to really help protect them? I cringe at the thought of losing the Tufted Puffin and revel in the mishap chance of a wayward Tufted Puffin finding its way to the coast of the UK. Maybe he fancied a spot of tea. Maybe he was simply lost at sea.

M Wright (Photo)

Whatever brought the Tufted Puffin to the UK pales in comparison to the joy he will bring to the bird lovers who will visit him while he is there. We should all enjoy the Tufted Puffin while we can—near or far from its home—with its long, fuzzy eyebrows and quirky little walk before he moves on to a different place…due to climate change or worse due to neglect, habitat loss or natural predators.

Talking to the Zookeepers pays off!! Next time you visit a zoo—say hello and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Tufted puffin couple at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, WA

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium currently has 20 tufted puffins in its exhibit, 9 males and 11 females. The tufted puffins range in age from 1 to 31. They currently have the oldest living puffin in captivity at 31 years of age!! He is only 3 years younger than me! =) Not only is he the oldest living puffin in captivity but tufted puffins are thought to only be capable of producing and raising chicks until their mid-twenties but this 31-year-old tufted puffin is a proud papa this year! The Pt. Defiance Zoo and Aquarium also has the oldest living female in captivity at 27 years old. And if all this isn’t enough to make you get excited they also have 3 tufted puffin pairs that they believe are raising chicks this year. I wrote ‘they believe’ because the zookeepers try to let the tufted puffins raise the chicks as naturally as possible so the zookeepers do not check on their progress. They wait and are surprised by the little ones in the exhibit. How fun is that?!?

This is one of the tufted puffin mothers who had a chick this year

The youngest tufted puffin chick at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium as of August 2009!

The Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is currently in the middle of some intensive training with their puffins as well. In the past year they have been training them to eat from the zookeepers’ hands so that they can better deliver any vitamins and medications the puffins may need. The training has been extremely successful so far. Part of this training for the last 6 months included working on scale training the puffins (training the puffins to step on a scale in order to get more frequent weights) instead of having to catch the puffins and hold them to get their weight. Catching them is extremely stressful for the puffins and so the the new weighing techniques has been very effective for both the zookeepers and the puffins. The Pt. Defiance Zoo now has weights on all birds except for about 4.

It is amazing what some hard work can produce! These quirky adorable little birds are definitely smarter than the zookeepers realized. I, for one, am looking forward to discovering more about the little pufflings and the progress of the training at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium!

For more information on the puffin exhibit (within the Rocky Shores exhibit) at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium—you can visit them online at their official website or in person at:

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium
5400 N Pearl St # D Ruston, WA 98407-3296
(253) 591-5337

What are the hours and days of operation to see the puffins at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium? The zoo is open from 9:30-6:00 until September 7. After that the zoo is open from 9:30-5:00. The birds can be viewed any time during those hours, their exhibit is never closed.

When are the best times to go to see the puffins at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium if you have questions?
They feed their puffins 3 times a day during breeding season, twice a day during non-breeding season. As of right now, they are fed at approximately 8:00, 12:00-1:00, and 3:00-3:30. They will discontinue the last feeding during non-breeding season. This isn’t really definitive, but there is not a set schedule to when they feed their animals but this is a good guess. I will update you when I find out more…

Horned Puffin

Originally uploaded by ConstantineD

Another fantastic horned puffin photo from Constantine D. Definitely worth seeing up close.

NATIONAL WILDLIFE MAGAZINE Aug/Sep 1994, vol. 32 no. 5 The Puffins Keep Their Secrets By Les Line These small seabirds delight human visitors to rocky islands in north seas, yet remain biological mysteries.

The lore of the Atlantic puffin, a species that ranks among everyone’s favorite seabirds, includes an enduring story about how parent birds starve their single nearly grown chicks until hunger motivates the youngsters to leave the security of clifftop burrows and, in the dark of night, leap to the pounding sea.

A famous Welsh birdman, Ronald Lockley, discovered this behavior in the 1930s while studying puffins on the island of Skokholm off Wales. When matchsticks that he lodged…

Read the rest of this article (IT IS WORTH THE READ REALLY!!!) and more National Wildlife Magazine features online.

Puffins made in ASCII by Joan Stark.

-=[ auk ]=-  12/96
          .--.
         / ,~a`-,
         \ \_.-"`
          ) (
        ,/ ."\
       /  (  |
      /   )  ;
 jgs /   /  /
   ,/_."` /`
    /_/\ |___
       `~~~~~`

-=[ puffin ]=-  modified by llizard

         .-"-.
        /  ,~a\_
        \  \__))>
        ,) ." \
       /  (    \
      /   )    ;
 jgs /   /     /
   ,/_."`  _.-`
    /_/`"\\___
         `~~~`