Euan Dunn - RSPB Spotlight: Puffins

The Rhinoceros Auklet.

The names of the three Pacific puffin species all reflect their dramatic facial decoration in the breeding season. The Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata) most closely resembles our Atlantic Puffin, but it has a largely yellow bill and a small fleshy horn projecting above each of its eyes. The Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) is the largest of the four, with a massive orange bill, long, straw-coloured plumes sweeping back from its crown and a blackish body. Lastly, and least Puffin-like of all, the Rhinoceros Auklet (Cerorhinca monocerata) is so-called due to the pale, horn-like knob sticking up from the base of its upper bill, but this puffin lacks the spade-like conical bill of the other three species and also has much drabber, sooty-brown plumage.

A rare vagrant

The Pacific trio of puffins wander widely within their own oceans but, as far as the records show, not beyond them. So the sighting of a Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) the first ever record for Britain on the north Kent coast in September 2009 was a jaw-dropping moment for the few birdwatchers who had the great good fortune to spot and photograph it. Perhaps the bird was swept across the Atlantic by a gale. Alternatively, climate change may have played a role in its initial escape from the Pacific to the Atlantic, given that melting ice in the Arctic is increasingly opening up a sea corridor north of Canada where previously there was an impenetrable frozen barrier to the free passage of seabirds.

The gaudy sea parrot

Like its Pacific relatives, in adulthood our Puffin possesses remarkable facial adornments in summer. The centrepiece is a conical beak of brick-red, blue and cream, much deeper than it is wide, and featuring curved, vertical grooves (see chapter ), an effect that earned the bird its ancient name of sea parrot. On either corner of the base of the beak nestles a fleshy saffron-yellow rosette, its wrinkling making it look a bit like a walnut kernel. Each dark eye is encircled by a crimson ring, above and below which are small, bluish plates, the triangular upper one lending the Puffin a look that hovers between wistful and a quizzical who me? The visual impact of all these decorative effects is concentrated by a backdrop of greyish-white cheeks.

The base of the beak is flanked on either side by a distinctive fleshy rosette.

The Puffins gaudy clowns mask is worn only during the breeding season.

In addition to the show of colour on the head, the legs and feet are an equally eye-catching orange. All this colour intensity is heightened by the monochrome plumage covering the rest of the adult Puffins body, a dazzling white breast contrasting with black upperwings, back and tail. The black sweeps up over the crown of the head to the base of the beak like a hood. It is this friars cowl feature that gave rise to the Puffins scientific name, Fratercula arctica, meaning little brother of the Arctic. The Puffins portly, barrel-chested outline only serves to reinforce this friar-like impression.