Atlantic Puffin

The colourful triangular bill of the breeding Atlantic Puffin — banded in orange, blue, and yellow — is shed to a duller, smaller form in winter, when the face also darkens. Black above and white below with a pale face, it swims underwater using its wings for propulsion and can carry several small fish, such as sand eels, herring, and capelin, crosswise in the bill. It breeds on grassy cliff tops and offshore islands of the North Atlantic, from eastern Canada to Iceland, Norway, and northwest Russia, and spends the winter entirely at sea. A single egg is laid in a burrow or crevice, incubated for 36 to 45 days, with the chick fledging between 34 and 57 days. At the colony it gives a low, moaning growl, but at sea it is silent. It is listed as Vulnerable.