Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica)

Wild Birds World Editorial Team August 14, 2026 82 0

The Atlantic Puffin is the most recognizable puffin species and the only one found in the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite its colorful appearance, it spends most of its life far out at sea, can fly at speeds of up to 55 mph (88 km/h), “flies” underwater using its wings, and molts all of its flight feathers at once each winter, leaving it temporarily unable to fly.

It is also the only puffin species currently classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN.

IUCN status Vulnerable

Atlantic Puffin, a black and white seabird with pale grey face patches and a bright orange bill

Atlantic Puffin Overview

Fratercula arctica

The smallest of the three puffins and the only one in the Atlantic. It sheds every flight feather at once each winter and cannot fly for a month or two.

Seabird Alcidae Burrow nester North Atlantic

Species Profile

Length 11–12 in 28–30 cm

Wingspan 19–25 in 47–63 cm

Standing height About 8 in 20 cm

Subspecies Three Differ only in size; contested

Clutch size One egg A single white egg per season

First breeding 4 to 5 years

Range North Atlantic Ocean

Population 12–14 million Adults, 2018 estimate

Iceland’s share 60% of the world total

Nest Clifftop burrow

Diet Fish Around 40 a day

Incubation 39–45 days Shared by both parents

Scientific Classification

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Chordata

Class Aves

Order Charadriiformes

Family Alcidae

Genus Fratercula

Species F. arctica

Described Linnaeus, 1758 Originally as Alca arctica

Common Identification

Atlantic Puffin

The scientific name is a joke about monks and a reference to a constellation. The English name was stolen from a different bird entirely, and only attached to this one in 1768. None of it describes the thing everybody actually notices, which is the bill.

Name & Taxonomic Roots

Fratercula arctica

Fratercula (Medieval Latin Origin)

“Little friar”, for black and white plumage resembling monastic robes.

arctica (Ancient Greek Origin)

From arktos, bear, by way of the northern constellation Ursa Major. It means northern, not arctic.

Puffin (Anglo-Norman Origin)

Puffed or swollen, and once the name for salted Manx Shearwater meat. Pennant transferred it to this bird in 1768.

Lundy (Old Norse Origin)

From lund-ey, puffin island. The island issued its own stamps in 1929, with values given in puffins.

1. Relatives

The closest relative is the Horned Puffin of the Pacific. The puffins together with the Rhinoceros Auklet form the tribe Fraterculini within the auk family, Alcidae.

Three Subspecies, or None

Three are generally recognised: F. a. arctica, F. a. grabae and F. a. naumanni. The only difference between them is size, and it increases with latitude in a clean gradient.

	Weight	Wing length
F. a. naumanni, northern Iceland	650 g (1 lb 7 oz)	186 mm
F. a. arctica, southern Iceland	Intermediate	Intermediate
F. a. grabae, Faroes	400 g (0.9 lb)	158 mm

Ernst Mayr argued that the differences are clinal, typical of peripheral populations, and that no subspecies should be recognised at all. That view has not won out, but it is worth knowing that the divisions are boundaries drawn across a gradient rather than distinct groups.

2. Identification & Appearance

Fratercula arctica · Identification at a glance

Vulnerable

Family Alcidae The auks, alongside guillemots, murrelets, auklets and the razorbill

Length 11 to 12 in 28 to 30 cm Measured bill tip to tail. The smallest of the three puffin species

Wingspan 19 to 25 in 47 to 63 cm Small for the body weight, which is why the wings must beat several times a second

Standing Height About 8 in 20 cm Roughly the height of a pint glass. Short legs set far back give the upright stance

Sexes Alike Males average slightly larger, but the two are identically coloured

Subspecies Three, though contested They differ only in size, which increases with latitude. Ernst Mayr argued the gradient is clinal and none should be recognised

Winter Plumage Almost unrecognisable The bill plates and eye ornaments are shed and the face darkens. Rarely seen, since the birds are at sea

IUCN Status Vulnerable Uplisted from Least Concern in 2015 after a review found rapid decline across Europe

Glossy black across the forehead, crown, nape, back, wings and tail, with a broad black collar around the neck and throat. The underparts are white. On each side of the head sits a large lozenge of very pale grey, tapering to a point and nearly meeting at the back of the neck.

The eyes look almost triangular, an effect created by a small peaked area of horny blue-grey skin above each eye and a rectangular patch below. The irises are brown or very dark blue, each ringed in red.

The legs are short and set well back on the body, which is what gives the bird its upright stance ashore. Legs and webbed feet are bright orange, against sharp black claws.

Males are generally slightly larger than females, but the two are coloured alike.

The Bill Is an Age Chart

Broad and triangular from the side, narrow from above. The outer half is orange-red, the inner half slate grey, separated by a yellow chevron-shaped ridge, with a yellow fleshy strip at the base and a yellow wrinkled rosette where the mandibles join.

The proportions change as the bird ages. An immature bird has a bill of full length but not full width. Over time it deepens, the upper edge curves, and a kink develops at the base. With age, one or more grooves may appear on the red section. The bite is powerful.

Winter Is a Different Bird

The bright bill plates and facial ornaments are grown in spring and shed in a partial moult at the end of the breeding season. The bill becomes narrower, its tip duller and its base darker grey. The eye ornaments drop away and the eyes look round. The head and neck feathers are replaced at the same time, and the face darkens.

Almost nobody sees this. Once the birds leave their chicks they head out to sea and do not return to land until the following breeding season.

Juveniles

Similar in plumage but duller throughout, with a much darker grey face, a yellowish-brown bill tip and dark legs. Each year at sea the bill broadens, the face patches pale, and the legs and bill brighten.

3. Built for Water, Not Air

The wings are small relative to body weight because they have two jobs, and the underwater one wins.

Flight is expensive. To stay airborne the wings must beat several times per second. Flight is direct and low, typically about 35 feet above the sea, which is higher than most auks manage, and the bird can reach 50 mph. Take-off means pattering across the surface while flapping hard. Landing is graceless: a crash into a wave crest, or a belly flop in calm water.

Underwater it is transformed. The bird swims with semi-extended wings as paddles and its feet as a rudder, reaching considerable depths and staying submerged for up to a minute.

It gives up flying entirely once a year. Most birds moult their primaries a pair at a time so they can keep flying. The Atlantic Puffin sheds all of them at once and is flightless for a month or two, usually between January and March, alone on the open ocean.

4. Range & Habitat

Fratercula arctica · Distribution at a glance

Pelagic

Range The North Atlantic Breeding colonies ring the northern Atlantic, from Maine and Newfoundland east to Norway, Russia and northern France

European Share Over 90% Europe holds 4.77 to 5.78 million pairs. Iceland alone accounts for 60% of the world total

Largest Western Colony Witless Bay Over 260,000 pairs in Newfoundland, the biggest in the western Atlantic

Southern Limit France to Maine In summer. In winter birds may range as far south as the Mediterranean and North Carolina

Winter Range Open ocean The North Atlantic offers so much water that each bird has over a square kilometre to itself, which is why they are so seldom seen

Recorded Journey 7,700 km Covered in eight months by one geolocator-tagged bird, north to the Labrador Sea then southeast to the mid-Atlantic

Colony Requirements Grassy clifftops Soil deep enough to burrow into, and height to launch from. Islands are strongly preferred, almost certainly to avoid ground predators

Time Ashore The breeding season only Fledglings leave at night and do not return to land for two or three years

Preferred Habitat Types

Rocky Sea Cliffs
Grassy Coastal Cliffs
Cold Atlantic Waters
Open Ocean

The bird breeds from Russia, Iceland and Greenland through Norway, the Faroes, Britain and Ireland, and across to Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and Maine. Islands are strongly preferred over mainland sites, almost certainly because they lack ground predators.

The wintering range is enormous. The North Atlantic offers something between 15 and 30 million square kilometres of open water, which works out at more than a square kilometre per bird. That is why the species is so rarely encountered at sea despite its numbers.

Geolocators fitted to birds in Maine produced one striking figure: a single bird covered 7,700 km in eight months, heading north to the Labrador Sea, then southeast to the mid-Atlantic, before returning to land.

5. Diet & Foraging

Almost entirely fish, with occasional shrimp, other crustaceans, molluscs and polychaete worms, mostly in coastal waters.

An adult needs around 40 fish a day. Sand eels, herring, capelin and sprats are the mainstays. The bird can handle shallow-bodied fish up to 7 inches long, but usually takes prey nearer 3 inches.

How It Carries So Many at Once

This is the image everyone knows, and the mechanism is neat. The puffin fishes by sight, swallowing small fish while still submerged but bringing larger ones up. It can catch several in a single dive, holding the earlier ones in place with a muscular, grooved tongue while it hunts more. The two mandibles are hinged so they can be held parallel, keeping a row of fish in position, and inward-facing serrations along the edges of the bill stop them sliding out.

Salt is dealt with partly by the kidneys and partly through specialised salt glands in the nostrils.

Food Supply Drives Everything

Three regional studies show how tightly breeding success is tied to a single prey species. In Shetland, sand eels normally make up at least 90% of what chicks are fed, and in years when sand eels were scarce, many chicks starved. In Norway, herring is the mainstay, and puffin numbers fell as herring numbers did. In Labrador, the birds proved more flexible, switching to other prey when capelin declined.

6. Breeding & Nesting

Fratercula arctica · Breeding at a glance

Colonial Nester

First Breeding 4 to 5 years old Birds usually return to the colony where they hatched

Nest A clifftop burrow Dug on grassy slopes above the cliff edge, or an existing hole taken over, sometimes from a rabbit

Pair Bond Monogamous Though it appears to result from fidelity to the burrow rather than to the mate. Renewed each year by billing

Clutch Size A single white egg 61 by 42 mm and about 62 g. A replacement may follow if the first is lost early

Laying April to June April in southern colonies, seldom before June in Greenland. Neighbouring burrows tend to lay in synchrony

Incubation 39 to 45 days Shared by both parents, each with two brood patches

Fledging 38 to 44 days The full range runs 34 to 50 days, stretching longer in years when fish are scarce

Leaving the Burrow Alone, at night The chick walks down to the sea when predation risk is lowest, and does not return to land for two or three years

Colony Life

Large colonies divide into subcolonies along physical boundaries like stands of bracken or gorse. Early arrivals take the best ground, which means densely packed burrows on grassy slopes just above the cliff edge, where take-off is easiest. Latecomers are pushed to the periphery and face more predation. Younger birds arriving a month behind the adults may find nothing left and simply wait a year.

Puffins are cautious about landing where no other puffins are present, and will circle a colony several times before coming down. Dominance is displayed with an upright stance, fluffed chest, cocked tail and an exaggerated slow walk; submissive birds flatten themselves horizontally and scurry past.

Monogamous, But for an Unexpected Reason

Pairs return to the same burrow year after year, and the resulting monogamy appears to come from fidelity to the nest site rather than to the mate. The pair bond is renewed by billing, in which the two birds approach each other, wag their heads from side to side and rattle their beaks together. It happens repeatedly through courtship and continues at a lower rate all season.

Both parents incubate, each with two brood patches, and both provision the chick. The male spends more time guarding and maintaining the burrow, the female more on incubation and feeding.

The Chick

Hatches covered in black down with its eyes open, able to stand immediately, weighing about 42 g and gaining roughly 10 g a day. For the first few days fish are passed beak to beak; after that they are simply dropped on the floor beside it.

It fledges at about 75% of adult weight and leaves alone, at night, when predation risk is lowest. It walks, runs and flaps its way down to the sea, cannot fly properly yet, and may be 3 km offshore by daybreak. It does not congregate with others and does not come back to land for two or three years.

Burrows Reshape the Island

Puffins are energetic diggers, and a heavily used slope can be undermined by a network of tunnels. The turf dries out in summer, vegetation dies, and loose soil blows away. Burrows collapse, and careless human footfall across a nesting slope can cause it. The colony on Grassholm was lost entirely when erosion left too little soil to dig in.

7. Predators

Colonies sit on islands precisely to avoid foxes, rats, stoats, weasels, cats and dogs. The threats that remain come mostly from the air.

Great Black-backed Gulls and Great Skuas can take an adult in flight or catch one that cannot escape fast enough on the ground. Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls are not usually able to bring down a healthy adult, but they walk through colonies taking eggs that have rolled toward burrow entrances and chicks that have wandered too near daylight.

Arctic Skuas specialise in theft rather than predation, harassing puffins in the air until they drop their fish. Adults returning with food tend to arrive in groups, which is thought to reduce both this kleptoparasitism and predation by Great Skuas.

At sea the danger comes from below. Seals and large fish take puffins, and the birds can sometimes be seen dipping their heads underwater to look around.

8. Conservation

Fratercula arctica · Conservation at a glance

Vulnerable

IUCN Status Vulnerable Uplisted from Least Concern in 2015, after a review found rapid and ongoing decline across the European range

Global Population 12 to 14 million Adult individuals, on the 2018 estimate. A large population can still be a declining one

European Projection A 50 to 79% loss Forecast between 2000 and 2065 if current trends continue

Where It Is Falling The northern strongholds Sharp declines since 2000 in Iceland, Norway, the Faroes and Greenland. Fair Isle nearly halved between 1986 and 2012

Main Threats Food, predators, people Declining fish stocks, gulls and skuas, introduced rats and cats, fishing net entanglement, pollution and climate change

Oil Spills Underreported Only 1.5% of oiled auks washed ashore are puffins, but many die at sea and sink. French breeding numbers fell to 16% after the 1967 Torrey Canyon spill

Recovery Is Possible Lundy and Skomer Lundy fell from 3,500 pairs to 10 because of rats, and raised its first chick in 30 years once they were removed. Skomer now holds over 43,000 birds

Project Puffin From zero to 148 pairs 954 chicks moved to Eastern Egg Rock, Maine, from 1973. Decoys convinced returning birds a colony existed, since puffins will not settle alone

The uplisting in 2015 followed a review showing rapid and ongoing decline across the European range. Since 2000 sharp declines have been recorded in Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, and the UK increase seen between 1969 and 2000 appears to have reversed. The Fair Isle colony was estimated at 20,200 individuals in 1986 and had almost halved by 2012.

Identified causes include increased predation by gulls and skuas, introduced rats, cats, dogs and foxes on nesting islands, toxic contamination, drowning in fishing nets, declining food supplies and climate change.

Two Case Studies in Opposite Directions

Lundy fell from 3,500 pairs in 1939 to 10 pairs in 2000, chiefly because rats were eating eggs and chicks. After the rats were eliminated a juvenile was seen in 2005, believed to be the first chick raised on the island in 30 years.

Craigleith, once one of Scotland's largest colonies at 28,000 pairs, collapsed to a few thousand after an introduced plant, tree mallow, spread across the island in dense thickets and blocked access to burrowing ground. The SOS Puffin project at the Scottish Seabird Centre, with over 700 volunteers, has been cutting it back, and puffins have returned in greater numbers.

Not everywhere is declining. Skomer in Pembrokeshire holds over 43,000 puffins and numbers have risen year on year since predators were removed.

Project Puffin

Started in 1973 by Stephen Kress of the National Audubon Society, this remains one of the most instructive seabird restoration efforts on record.

Eastern Egg Rock in Maine had held nesting puffins until 1885, when overhunting ended the colony. Because young puffins usually return to breed where they fledged, biologists translocated 10 to 14 day old chicks from Great Island in Newfoundland, placed them in artificial sod burrows, and hand-fed them for about a month. This ran until 1986, moving 954 birds in total.

The first adults returned in 1977. Decoys were installed to convince arrivals that a colony already existed, since puffins will not settle where none are present. Four pairs nested in 1981. By 2014 there were 148 nesting pairs. Along the way the project established that decoys, call recordings and mirrors can be used to re-establish a seabird colony from nothing.

Oil

As a bird that winters on the open ocean, the Atlantic Puffin is exposed to spills. Oiled plumage insulates poorly and floats badly, and birds preening themselves ingest and inhale toxins, leading to inflammation of the airways and gut and, longer term, liver and kidney damage.

The recorded toll usually understates the real one. Only about 1.5% of dead auks washed up on Atlantic beaches are puffins, but many more die far from land and sink. After the Torrey Canyon spill in 1967 few dead puffins were recovered, yet the number breeding in France the following year fell to 16% of its previous level.

9. People & Culture

Puffins were historically eaten fresh, salted, or smoked and dried, with feathers used in bedding. Hunting continues under strict limits in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

The traditional Faroese method, fleyg, used a fleygingarstong: a 3.6 metre pole with a small net suspended between two rods, resembling a very long lacrosse stick. A few dead puffins were scattered to tempt incoming birds down, and the net was flicked upward to scoop one from the air as it slowed to land. A skilled hunter could take 200 to 300 in a day. On St Kilda a different method used a flexible pole with a noose, pushed slowly toward a bird whose curiosity overcame its caution.

The species is the official bird of Newfoundland and Labrador. Informal names include "clowns of the sea" and "sea parrots", and the young are called pufflings.

Lundy in the Bristol Channel is thought to take its name from the Norse lund-ey, puffin island. The island issued its own stamps in 1929 with denominations in "puffins".

Penguin Books launched its children's imprint, Puffin Books, in 1939.

On the Icelandic island of Heimaey there is a tradition of children rescuing fledglings that become disoriented by street lighting and land in the village, then releasing them to the sea. Bruce McMillan's photo book Nights of the Pufflings records it.

And because puffins are protected on Skellig Michael, the production team for the Star Wars sequel trilogy could not remove them from shots. They digitally dressed the birds instead, and the porgs were the result.

Similar Species

Swipe

A striking coastal seabird with solid black plumage and prominent white wing patches.

Black Guillemot

Penguin-like diver with a slender, pointed bill.

Common Murre

Stocky cliff-nester recognized by a distinct white bill stripe.

Thick-billed Murre

A robust, black-and-white seabird recognized by its thick, blunt bill.

Razorbill

Pelagic bird sporting sweeping golden head plumes.

Tufted Puffin

Nocturnal forager with a prominent pale bill horn.

Rhinoceros Auklet

Massive, flightless seabird driven to extinction in the 1800s.

Great Auk

Tiny, plump Arctic seabird that gathers in massive flocks.

Little Auk

Pacific seabird known for distinct white eye-rings.

Spectacled Guillemot

Small seabird that remarkably nests in old-growth forests.

Marbled Murrelet

Striking black seabird with large white wing patches.

Pigeon Guillemot

Distinctive seabird named for the fleshy horn above its eyes.

Horned Puffin

Common Questions About Atlantic Puffins

Where can I see Atlantic Puffins?

Between roughly April and August, at a breeding colony. Iceland holds 60% of the world's population, and there are well-known colonies in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Norway, the Faroes, Newfoundland and Maine. Outside those months there is no point looking: the birds are scattered across the open Atlantic and will not touch land again until spring.

Are puffins related to penguins?

No. Puffins are auks, they live in the Northern Hemisphere, and they can fly. Penguins live in the south and cannot. The resemblance is convergent evolution: both groups needed to chase fish underwater and arrived at a similar body independently.

Do puffins really lose part of their beak?

Yes. The bright orange plates and the ornaments around the eyes are grown for the breeding season and shed afterwards. The winter bill is narrower, duller and darker at the base, and the face turns grey. The change is dramatic enough that the two plumages were once taken for different species.

How do they carry so many fish at once?

With a specialised bill. A muscular, grooved tongue pins each fish against the roof of the mouth while the bird catches the next one, the two mandibles hinge so they can be held parallel rather than closing, and inward-facing serrations along the edges stop the catch sliding out. An adult eats around 40 small fish a day.

Is it true they cannot fly in winter?

For a month or two, yes. Most birds shed their flight feathers a pair at a time so they can keep flying. Puffins drop all of them at once, usually between January and March, and are grounded on the water until the new ones grow. They do it far out at sea, alone, which is where they spend the winter anyway.

Do puffins mate for life?

Mostly, but not quite for the romantic reason. Pairs do return to each other year after year, though this appears to result from loyalty to the burrow rather than to the partner. Both birds head to the same hole each spring and find each other there. The bond is renewed by billing, where the two rattle their beaks together.

What is a puffling?

A puffin chick. It leaves the burrow alone at night, when predation risk is lowest, and walks and flaps its way down to the sea without its parents. On the Icelandic island of Heimaey some become confused by street lighting and land in the village, and there is a long-standing tradition of children collecting them and releasing them at the shore.

How long do they live, and how many eggs do they lay?

One egg a year, and only from the age of four or five. That is a slow rate of replacement, which is why adult survival matters so much for this species and why colony losses take so long to recover. Both parents incubate for about 40 days, and the chick fledges around six weeks later.

Are Atlantic Puffins endangered?

They are listed as Vulnerable, which is a step below endangered. The IUCN uplisted them in 2015 after finding rapid decline across Europe. The global total still runs to 12 to 14 million adults, so the concern is the direction of travel rather than the current number: European populations are projected to fall by 50 to 79% between 2000 and 2065.

Is anything actually helping?

Yes, and the results are clear enough to be worth knowing. Lundy fell from 3,500 pairs to 10 because of introduced rats, and raised its first chick in three decades once the rats were removed. Skomer now holds over 43,000 birds. In Maine, Project Puffin rebuilt a colony from nothing by moving chicks in and using decoys to convince returning adults that others were already nesting there.

Sources & References

Last reviewed July 2026.

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