When baby Atlantic puffins in Iceland venture out of the cliffside burrows where they had hatched, they look for the light of the moon. It will guide them to the sea. But nearby town lights sometimes confuse them. This leads many to make wrong turns en route to the ocean.
A community-based Puffling Patrol searches for and rescues such pufflings that have gone astray in town.
These chicks — and many of the colony’s adults — are helping scientists who monitor and study the birds’ largely mysterious lives at sea.
The range of Atlantic puffins spans the North Atlantic — from the coasts of Canada and the northeastern United States to Greenland and Russia. These birds spend most of their lives at sea.
Iceland houses the breeding site of the world’s largest Atlantic puffin colony. It’s on Heimaey, a small, rocky island. Here, adult puffins pair up and spend the summer laying and incubating eggs, then raising a single chick.
Nesting pairs of puffins prefer grassy seaside slopes above rocky cliffs, such as the one seen above this harbor in Heimaey. Each breeding pair occupies its own burrow. It’s as if the cliff were a huge apartment complex.
For about six weeks, puffin parents care for their babies. They bring sandeels and other small oceanic fish to the pufflings. They also fend off predators, such as seagulls. The downy fluff around this puffling’s neck (right, above) shows that it’s not yet ready to fledge (fly off).
By late August and September, the young pufflings are mature enough to live on their own. Over four to five weeks, tens of thousands of young birds ready themselves to fledge. To hide from birds of prey, they’ll leave their burrows in the dark of night.
Their instinct has always been to head for the open ocean. That’s where they hunt small fish and grow. To find the ocean, they follow the moon — and its reflection off the water.
But about 100 years ago, things got complicated. That when the island’s only town, Vestmannaeyjabær, got electricity. Ever since, dazzled by night lights, some baby puffins have taken a wrong turn — toward town and away from the ocean.
Enter the Puffling Patrol. Equipped with flashlights, cardboard boxes and gloves, the folks in Heimaey head out in the dark during puffling-fledge season. Kids, like the ones poking around this gas station with their dad, search for lost chicks from about 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.
On any given night, a dozen or more kids — groups of teens or younger kids with parents or grandparents — scour backyards, parking lots and rooftops. They search anyplace where the glow of town competes with moonlight. It’s also a great excuse to stay up late.
Puffin bones are dense and heavy. This helps them dive beneath the sea surface. But the young birds are inexperienced flyers. When pufflings end up in town instead of on a cliffside, they have trouble taking flight. That leaves them vulnerable to predators, such as cats.
It also makes them easy for kids to catch. It usually takes just a short chase to grab one of the birds. Kids put them in a cardboard box and then take them home.
In the wee hours of the morning, people weigh and log their rescued pufflings on the Puffling Patrol website. The only thing to watch out for are the pufflings’ tiny, kitten-like claws.
Come morning, the Patrol takes healthy rescues — pufflings large enough to live at sea — to the cliffs. Some people allow the pufflings to decide on their own when to launch themselves over the edge. From this height, the birds can catch some air. They’ll fly as far as they’re able before landing in the water.
Other pufflings get a boost. Above, Kim Cupples, a staff member at the island’s Puffin Rescue Centre, releases a rescued puffling.
Some rescues, however, need extra care.
Pufflings that fell into the harbor may have been dirtied with oil from boats. Their feathers must be cleaned to become waterproof again. Without this help, the birds would not survive in the frigid North Atlantic.
Other pufflings may be found injured or underfed. The Puffling Patrol brings these birds to the Puffin Rescue Centre for treatment. It’s run by Sea Life Trust, a charity that works to protect the world’s oceans and the life within in.
Left, two staff members, Chris Coates and Talia Soalt, examine an immature puffling that went to town before losing its down. The bird is healthy but needs to grow its adult feathers before it can survive at sea.
Rescued pufflings also help scientists learn more about their species.
Ecologist Erpur Snær Hansen leads a research team at the South Iceland Nature Research Center. His team monitors populations in Iceland’s puffin colonies and works with puffin researchers in other countries. His work has turned up evidence that puffins are a tool-user.
Below, research assistant Lucas Canas Hernandez puts a ring on a rescued puffling’s leg. That ring is like an ID band. It allows researchers to track the bird’s location and age in a database. That helps scientists monitor puffin populations over time.
Adult puffins develop a brightly colored, striped beak and orange feet. Afterward, their appearance won’t change as they continue to get older. So someone can only tell the age of a bird that was ringed as a puffling.
During the 2024 season, the Puffling Patrol rescued more than 4,200 pufflings. That’s slightly more than the human population of Heimaey! Hansen’s team ringed some 400 of these young birds.
Adult puffins spend most of their lives at sea, coming to land only to breed. Above is one of them that’s just caught lunch.
During breeding season, Hansen and his team fit adult puffins with battery-operated devices. One can be seen on the adult bird above. Called loggers, they have a global location sensor, or GLS. These loggers detect changes in daylight and record when the sun rises and sets. Such data can pinpoint a bird’s location to within about 180 kilometers (110 miles).
Finding and observing birds at sea can be nearly impossible. So, until GLS loggers became available, scientists knew little about where puffins went once their brief, land-based breeding season was over.
Since 2014, researchers have been mapping GLS data in a project called SEATRACK. Heimaey is shown with a black dot on this map. Areas in pink show where the puffins of Heimaey spend their time at sea.
Such data are helping scientists understand what seabirds do offshore, why there are fewer and fewer of them and how we might protect them.
Sandeels are the puffins’ main food source. Although not true eels, these slender fish have an eel-like appearance. Warming temperatures tend to make this fish less abundant off Iceland, Hansen’s group has found. So when these sandeels become scarce, puffins must fly farther to find them. And puffins stressed this way often produce fewer chicks, this team reports.
Another threat these birds face is pollution, including mercury, plastics and contaminants from shipping. Humans cause many ocean changes that are putting puffins at risk. Bird-migration studies can help find sites in the ocean where human activity should be restricted to protect these birds.
When puffling season is over, Heimaey’s seaside cliffs are quiet. Puffin burrows are empty. And kids of the Puffling Patrol can catch up on lost sleep and share their favorite pics.
This year, three of the rescued pufflings couldn’t be released. They wouldn’t survive at sea. They now reside in captivity in the Puffin Rescue Centre alongside a rescued guillemot and a handful of adult puffins in permanent care. The rest of the puffins of Heimaey are now out at sea. Some have rings and some adults now wear new GLS loggers.
Adult puffins return to the same colony — even the same burrow — each year. So, Iceland’s scientists will wait patiently for the birds’ return for the next summer’s breeding season. Then they will briefly trap these adults and download info from their loggers.
From these data, they’ll weave together the story of each wanderer’s ocean journey.
