Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Atlantic Puffin on a Sunny Afternoon




The Atlantic Puffin is Newfoundland's provincial bird. Did you know that 95% of all North America's puffins breed around the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts. We have the largest puffin colony in the western Atlantic (225,000 pairs) at the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, 32km south of St. John's.

Here is the familiar breeding adult with it's striking orange, yellow, and bluish bill and matching bright orange feet. A puffin’s greyish white face is decorated with fleshy yellow rosettes at the base of the bill and red rings and small bluish plates around the eyes. The sexes look the same, although males tend to be slightly larger than females.

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1 comment:

Genevieve Netz said...

What a beautiful bird. With those bright colors, it seems like he should be a tropics-dweller, not a northerner.