How the puffins reproduce

Posted on June 16, 2009 by cinzia

puffins Iceland

The love season starts in Springtime for the puffins: their plumage becomes brighter, the beak becomes more colourful, the plumage around the eyes becomes red and black, and some light blue “ornaments” appear above and beneath the globe of the eye.

The coupling ritual starts with beaks reciprocal rubbing, that have the goal of enforcing the relationship. The couples remain unchanged for all lifelong and they always nidify on the same cliff and even in the same nest!

The puffins nidify in colonies, between June and July. They dig long galleries in the ground, at the end of whom they lay the only round, white egg. The brooding lasts 42 days. When it is born, the puffin gets feed for 40 days. After this period, the newborn is ready to leave the nest and seek for refuge into the sea, where it lives 20 to 25 years.