Where do puffins go for the winter?

Its only relatively recently through the use of GPS tracking that we discovered where puffins actually go over winter

Atlantic puffins first arrive in the spring and the time of year can vary based on latitude. We typically see them arriving in early April, so we kick off our puffin tours from Oban around this time. At this point the puffins on the Isle of Lunga will spend the majority of their time clearing out their burrows, gathering nesting material, and preparing to lay their eggs.

Puffins are monogamous so they typically mate for life and each year they will return to the same burrow and reunite with their partner. We often see pairs showing affection through ‘billing‘ – a courtship display of rubbing and knocking their beaks together.  However, it has been found that puffin pairs will sometimes divorce with an average rate of 7% across the species, but some colonies show rates as high as 20% and some with no divorces at all.

Puffins produce a single chick known as a puffling. Parents will then take turns foraging and bringing back food, and from about mid June we see them returning with sandeels (as seen in the iconic photos) while the young remain in the burrow until its time to fledge. Pufflings don’t have the same colourful beak that the adults possess, instead have a smaller, darker and less defined beak – however, most people are surprised to learn that even the adult puffins lose their colourful beaks over the winter months!

As we reach early August the colony starts to thin as the puffins begin their annual migration off to sea and based on tagged data we can see that the puffins on the west coast can travel as far as Greenland and will spend their entire winters in the exposed Atlantic Ocean following foraging opportunities. During this time puffins disperse, foraging over vast areas, segregated by age and sex,  and can be found in densities of as little as one puffin per km2 with little overlap between colonies.

As puffins are a migratory species, they have to balance the trade offs between current and future events; the cost of reproduction in the spring when food is plentiful vs the cost of surviving winter in the harsh Atlantic Ocean. As a result they may travel distances of up to 1500km from their colony, diving to depths of 60m in search of food. Males tend to go further than females, and juveniles tend to not to travel as far – mostly likely because they aren’t as efficient hunters yet.

Its hard to imagine that the charasmatic little puffins we see arriving back each spring with colourful beaks have just returned from a long winter at sea, but it highlights how lucky we are to have a healthy breeding colony right on our doorstep!

Trips running from April-July if you’d like to join

https://baskingsharkscotland.co.uk/tours/puffin-seabird-tour/