What an adorable flag! It comes in two sizes: Standard (40 inches by 40 inches and 1.9 ounces) and Garden (18 inches by 18 inches and 0.3 ounces).

Audubon Flag, Atlantic Puffin

Atlantic Puffin swiming

Originally uploaded by victorcerutti

And yet another great photograph from victorcerutti on flickr.

This puffin is scooping down. Colorful beak. The clown of the sea swimming about finding food. Great action image capture.

Atlantic Puffin landing

Originally uploaded by victorcerutti

Another fantastic photo by victorcerutti on flickr. Poetry in motion. This is a puffin landing…they are pretty fast and this photographer captured the motion very well.

Wet Atlantic Puffin

Originally uploaded by victorcerutti

What a great photo. It shows the bill after mating season when it is not as colorful and it shows the puffin when it is wet. A very natural and wonderful photograph.

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…

lundapysja (puffin) photo taken by Konný Guðjónsdóttir on flickr

A note from the photographer:

The story behind this picture is that I live in Westman islands, Iceland and in august every year the small puffins
fly to the lights in the town and the people (mostly children) go around and save them and send again to sea.

I found this one on my front door step one, one night when I come home and we put in a box for a night and the next morning we went to the shore to let the puffin go. But I took a picture of it before.

For few years ago we rescue a lot of puffins, from maybe 5 to 100 for one night. But now there are so few puffins that
it´s a luck to find one.

Thanks again to the photographer. You can check out this photo and more of hers by clicking here.

During the Middle Ages Muslim and Jewish scholars could not determine if various birds such as geese and Puffins were fish or  or humans and hence called for them to be killed—warning not to eat them as they were creatures of unknown origin. Since they did not know if they were fish or flesh, they also argued on which method would be best to kill these birds.

The puffin was often mistaken for the little auk and was often referred to as ‘half fish, half flesh.’¹

1. Tate, Peter (2008). Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend and Superstition. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. [↩]

Pondering a Puffin

by Brian A. Hartford

What a strange product of Nature,

the Puffin, is to what I refer.

Large orange beaked,

attached to a small head.

The body isn’t much of which to
speak,

black plumage, and not much more.

What miracle that such a design,

will support such a structure.

The white breast,

orange webbed feet,

such a clownish appearance.

The eyes highlight the costume,

small dots in a white feather field.

Is this costume for camouflage or,

for a darker spirit?

In Nature, it is not wise to guess,

it is uniqueness.

Fisherman by design,

to swim natural as it’s flight.

A source of amasement to me,

sheer joy to know he exists.

He returns to the cliffs of his
birth,

guards the nest.

protecting his unborn from the snare,

hazard of being a gastronomic
delight.

What a joy to know the puffin,

It is good to know he exists.

I am amused to think that,

the joke is on me.

BAH

There Once Was a Puffin

Oh, there once was a Puffin
Just the shape of a muffin,
And he lived on an island
In the bright blue sea!

He ate little fishes,
That were most delicious,
And he had them for supper
And he had them for tea.

But this poor little Puffin,
He couldn’t play nothin’,
For he hadn’t anybody
To play with at all.

So he sat on his island,
And he cried for awhile, and
He felt very lonely,
And he felt very small.

Then along came the fishes,
And they said, “If you wishes,
You can have us for playmates,
Instead of for tea!”

So they now play together,
In all sorts of weather,
And the Puffin eats pancakes,
Like you and like me.

by Florence Page Jaques

It is all too simple to recognize the puffin, right? Distinct in shape and colorful beak.

Let’s look beyond the colorful beak and try to identify the puffin as a member of the Auk family. Auks are chubby little seabirds with the white and black patterns we have come to love and recognize in our puffins. Each species in the Auk family has its very own distinct black and white pattern.

When the auks are in the water you often cannot see their entire bodies. Often you cannot even see their beak very well with them diving and plunging so far from the shore. Let’s pay attention to the different patterns in the black and white on the Auks and learn to recognize the Puffin within some common Auks.

• The Black Guillemot is mostly black with a little white streak—it has a completely black head and beak.
• The Atlantic Puffin is black around the neck and in a slight cap with a white face and a colorful beak.
• The Razorbill is black on the back except one line of white in the wings and white in the front like the puffin but it has a completely black face except one white streak along its beak—going down its bill from its eye and a white ring around the bill.
• The Ancient Murrelet has a dark grayish black back and a mostly black head but the white comes up higher onto its neck and the tip of its dark beak is light.

Now, maybe we can help others identify the puffins, a few auks and we’ve learned something new.

OK! Now you have an assignment—do a google image search and identify the Auks. =) Write me and tell me what you learned or thought.

References

Podulka, Sandy, Ronald W. Rohrbaugh, Jr., and Rick Bonney, Editors. Handbook of Bird Biology. 2nd edition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2004.