Puffin

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Puffin
Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica)

Atlantic Puffin ( Fratercula arctica )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Plover-like (Charadriiformes)
Family : Alkenbirds (Alcidae)
Genre : Lunde ( Fratercula )
Type : Puffin
Scientific name
Fratercula arctica
( Linnaeus , 1758)

The puffins ( Fratercula arctica ) - including puffins or Puffin called - is a species from the family of the Auks (Alcidae). The species breeds in burrows in the ground and on cliffs or at their foot in the northern Atlantic and the western Arctic Ocean . Due to the strongly declining populations in the area, the IUCN has classified the puffin as a vulnerable (endangered) since 2015 .

features

Adult birds

Portrait photo

With a body length of 28 to 34 cm and a wingspan of 50 to 60 cm, it is about the size of a domestic pigeon . Males are slightly larger and heavier than females; males caught on the island of Skomer off Wales had an average wing length of 159.9 mm and weighed an average of 391 g, while females had a wing length of 158.9 mm and a weight of 361 g. As with many members of the family, the chest band, the crown of the head, the back, and the top of the wings are black, and the underside of the torso is white. A diffuse dark gray zone extends laterally from the rear wing attachment to the leg attachment. In the magnificent dress , the head sides are sharply set off over a large area with a gray tinge. This white field tapers towards the back of the head. Under the eye there is a red, bulge-shaped skin structure from which a fine, featherless line stretches almost straight to the rear tip of the white field.

The beak, which is roughly triangular in profile, is extremely high but very narrow. In the basal part it shows a covering made up of several ornamental horns that are missing in the plain dress . The ridge and the distal half are bright light red and show transverse ridges and yellowish furrows at the base; the tip of the beak is often yellowish too. The proximal (basal) parts of the lower and upper beak are gray-violet, this color is set off from the distal red color by a yellow or yellow-orange bulge. At the base of the upper beak there is a wide yellowish-purple horn clasp. The beak ridges are enlarged and yellow-orange. The elongated nostril is located on the basal lower edge of the upper bill.

The iris is variable in brown, gray-brown or whitish. The legs are bright red. In Europe, the species is unmistakable due to its white head and large, three-colored beak.

Flying puffin

The strong colors of the beak are pale in the plain dress, as are the orange legs, which are then pale yellow. The head sides are gray in the plain dress. The large, horny beak sheath is thrown off during the moult and then renewed.

Young birds and nestlings

Fledglings have a smaller, dark gray bill with reddish stripes and dark gray eyes. Nestlings initially have short, light gray downs around the eyes, which later become longer and blackish brown. The downs on the top of the body are dark to black brown with gray bases. The belly is white. Even with the nestlings, the beak is noticeably flattened and angled to the side. In newly hatched nestlings it is initially dark reddish gray. Just before the nestlings fledge, both the upper and lower bills are reddish-brown with a darker base. The beak angle is yellow. Legs and toes are grayish pink. The webs of the nestlings are initially flesh-colored. They get darker and gray with age. The iris is blackish brown in the nestlings.

Vocalizations

The puffin's deep calls sound like “orr… oo” or “arr… ha-ha”, are falling or rising in pitch and thus resemble the creak of a rusty door hinge. They are occasionally uttered individually, but usually three times in a row with short pauses. Atlantic puffins often call on the water, but also in the colony and in the breeding caves.

distribution and habitat

Distribution area of ​​the puffin
Puffin on a cliff in Skellig Michael, County Kerry, Ireland

Breeding area

The breeding area of ​​the species includes the coasts and mainly islands of the northern Atlantic and the western polar sea . In the Nearctic, the puffin breeds on the Atlantic coast of North America from Labrador to Maine and on Greenland . The southernmost breeding colonies in the western Atlantic are found in the Gulf of Maine at about 43 degrees north, the northernmost is on Coburg Island in Baffin Bay at about 79 degrees north.

Puffin in a breeding colony on Mykines
Puffins (puffins) on Staffa

In Europe, the species breeds on Iceland , Jan Mayen , Svalbard , Bear Island and Nowaja Zemlya , along the Murman coast to southern Norway , on the Faroe Islands , in Great Britain and Ireland and locally on the coast of Sweden and Brittany . In the Eastern Atlantic, the breeding colonies are located between the 50th and 80th parallel north. Until 1830 the species was still a breeding bird on Heligoland .

During the breeding season, the upper edges or slopes of grassy, ​​steep cliffs or scree or rubble heaps at their foot are sought out. The populated cliff areas usually have a substrate layer that is at least 20 cm thick and capable of being digested, in which there are caves or in which caves can be dug. Outside the breeding season, puffins are even more attached to the open sea than the other European guillemots and the razorbill .

hikes

Outside of the breeding season, from late August to early April, puffins live exclusively pelagic in the open sea. The migration strategies seem to be individual and very different depending on the origin of the population; the animals are standing , line or migratory birds . In order to find out more details about the whereabouts of puffins, so-called "geolocators" are attached to the rings by researchers. These tiny devices record the location, which can be read out the following year when the bird is found again.

Puffins are apparently widely distributed individually or in small groups across the Atlantic; concentrations in certain marine regions are not known. In addition, since almost all re-finds of ringed birds affect washed ashore and thus sick or dead individuals, the winter quarters of many populations are so far unknown. Overall, the winter quarters apparently cover the entire northern Atlantic south to North Africa, but also the western Mediterranean.

For example, Icelandic birds in the first year of life have so far only been found on the coasts of Newfoundland , so they apparently move to the southwest because the winters are mild there. Birds ringed in northern Scotland were mainly found in the northern Atlantic and the North Sea , with the furthest recovery distances being from Newfoundland, southern Greenland, Iceland, Sardinia , southern Morocco and Algeria . The populations that breed in the western Atlantic appear to remain in the region of their breeding area all year round and overwinter in the region from the Newfoundland Bank to George's Bank south of Nova Scotia . Atlantic puffins that breed in the north-east of the British Isles are mostly in the North Sea during the winter months. Breeding birds of the western British Isles, however, winter in the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean.

nutrition

Puffin with a stuffed beak

The main diet of adult puffins is fish, but in the winter half-year the poly-bristles and crustaceans can also play an important role in the diet. The food requirement of adult birds is around 80 to 100 grams per day. In the largest part of the distribution area, fish form the almost exclusive nestling food. The frequent schooling fish that can be reached during the day are captured, especially sand eels (Ammodytidae), sprat , capelin and Atlantic herring ; seldom different cod species , especially pollack , cod , whiting , Ciliata sp. and Gaidropsarus sp. In the Arctic Ocean, many bristles and crustaceans are also regularly fed to the nestlings.

The birds look for food by diving, under water they move forward with their wings (wing diving). Atlantic puffins carry the caught fish across their beak. They are pressed against the upper beak with the tongue until the whole length of the beak is filled with fish. During the breeding season, puffin feeding grounds are usually in the waters of the continental shelves and no more than ten kilometers from the breeding colony. For breeding colonies on Newfoundland, however, puffins were also found occasionally, which brought the fish from a distance of seventy kilometers. Puffins can dive up to seventy meters, but they usually find their food at shallower water depths. Ten puffins that were examined in more detail off the coast of Newfoundland over a period of 17 days, maximum diving depths of 40 to 68 meters were found, while ten puffins off the Norwegian coast maximum diving depths of 10 to 45 meters. For puffins observed off the Isle of May in Scotland , dives were less than 39 seconds 80% of the time. The maximum was 115 seconds. The breaks between dives are less than 20 seconds in 95% of the cases.

Reproduction

Puffins prefer to breed in very dense colonies, for example on Sule Skerry , one of the Orkney Islands , at least 47,000 occupied caves on 5 hectares, and on the Norwegian island of Røst 352,000 breeding pairs on 90 hectares.

Puffin in front of breeding caves
Calling puffins in a colony

Courtship and cave construction

The arrival in the colonies in Western Europe takes place in early to mid-April, in the Arctic Ocean the arrival varies greatly due to the dependence on the snowmelt. The courtship begins with the arrival at the breeding site, the birds arrive there already paired. Puffins have a monogamous seasonal marriage, with the vast majority of couples already dating the previous year. Copulations only take place on the water. The male asks the female to mate by throwing his head up and at the same time calling "arr ...". Females willing to mate swim with their heads raised and push their backs deeper into the water. After copulation, the partners slowly swim around each other.

Usually self-dug caves are used for breeding. More rarely, but depending on the location with a strongly varying proportion, caves are also taken over by shearwater or wild rabbits . Breeding in horizontal crevices or between rubble where no digging is taking place appears to be more common in North America, but very rarely in Europe. Only the immediate vicinity of the cave entrance is defended by the male against conspecifics. The caves are dug with the beak, the loose material is carried outside with the feet. Self-dug caves are usually a maximum of 0.75 to 1.50 m long, rarely up to 3 m. The opening is 30-40 cm wide, the passage has a diameter of about 12.5 cm and the nest chamber has a diameter of 30 to 40 cm.

Breeding and rearing of the young birds

Egg ( Museum Wiesbaden Collection )

The start of laying varies depending on the geographical location and snow conditions. On the west coast of Scotland, the first eggs are laid in the second week of April at the earliest, in central Norway usually in early May at the earliest and usually not until mid-May. The eggs are mainly laid on the bare floor of the cave or on a thin layer of feathers, plant parts and seaweed . The eggs are dirty white to gray-white and very sparse light brown and purple dashed and spotted. Eggs from Great Britain measure 60.8 mm × 42.3 mm on average, while eggs from the Murman Coast measure 63.7 mm × 44.4 mm on average. The eggs weigh about 65 g on average. The clutch consists of only one egg and the incubation period is 35 to 38 days.

Fledgling puffin

Both partners brood, hack and feed roughly in equal parts. The feed is held in front of the nestlings or dropped in the nest cavity. In contrast to all other members of the Alcidae family, the nestlings find food on the ground even in the dark. For this purpose, the nestlings scan the ground in their environment with their beak as soon as they have dried after hatching. From the age of 5 days, the young birds also run forward. The foraging behavior is triggered at the age of one to three days by touching the beak, by a sudden lightening of the cave or by utterances from the parent animals, later the nestlings also search spontaneously.

The nestling duration depends on the feeding situation. Well-fed young birds fly out after 37 to 41 days, poorly fed young birds after 46 to 54 days. A few days before going out, the young birds leave the cave after dark to train to fly. These trips take place up to ten times a night and usually only last a maximum of two minutes. The young birds move no more than 15 to 20 m from the cave. The final flight takes place independently, well-fed young birds fly to the sea, less-fed ones run or jump downhill. As soon as the sea is reached, the young birds swim out to sea on their own and do not come back to the colony. The adult birds visit the colony for up to three weeks after the young bird has fled.

Existence and endangerment

BirdLife International gives the population in Europe for 1990 to 2003 with 5.7 to 7.3 million pairs. Iceland has by far the largest population with 3 to 4 million pairs. Large populations also live in Norway with 1.5 to 2 million pairs, in Great Britain with 621,000 and in the Faroe Islands with 550,000 pairs.

Information on the long-term development of the population is methodologically difficult, as the population in the colonies can only be measured reliably by recording occupied caves. However, the caves are often inaccessible or difficult to find, so that only the visible individuals can be recorded. The number of these can, however, fluctuate considerably during the course of the day, so that examinations at different times and by different people can hardly be compared.

At least in Great Britain, the species increased sharply between 1900 and around 1950, after which the population there remained unchanged for a long time. The subsequent development was very inconsistent in different regions. On the Isle of May , the population increased by almost 20 percent per year between 1973 and 1981. Thereafter, the population growth abruptly slowed considerably and between 1985 and 1991 the population remained unchanged. In contrast, in one colony on St. Kilda, a sharp decline in the population from 29,600 occupied caves in 1987 to 19,000 in 1990 was noted.

On the Farne Islands off Northumberland , the first thorough survey in 1969 found 6,800 occupied caves, by 2003 the number had increased to around 55,700 occupied caves. When it was recorded again in 2008, however, a drop in the number to only 36,500 pairs was found. The reason for this decline is unclear. Since the reproduction in the colony was very good, an increased mortality of the adult birds during the wintering on the high seas is assumed to be the cause. The breeding colonies on Lundy and Ailsa Craig , both part of the British Isles, saw a marked decline in the population after the introduction of rats.

In Iceland and the Faroe Islands, puffins were caught and eaten on a large scale by the population. Around 270,000 birds were caught annually in the Faroe Islands at the beginning of the 20th century; in the 1970s it was still around 100,000 per year. Animals are currently still being caught in Iceland, but many Icelanders refrain from bird meat and its consumption is more the exception than the rule. The majority of the captured animals are young birds, so the influence on the population size is apparently very small, at least in vital colonies. In contrast, the decline in populations on islands off the Breton coast , in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and in the Gulf of Maine is attributed to overuse of the breeding colonies by humans.

A sharp decline in many local populations in Iceland and other colonies in the North Atlantic has been observed in some areas since the mid-1980s, but in some cases only in the 2010s , which may be related to the changing food web of the Atlantic. After the puffin had been listed as a Least Concern (not endangered) for years , the IUCN upgraded it to Vulnerable (endangered) by two steps in 2015 .

swell

Individual evidence

  1. BirdLife factsheet on the puffin . Retrieved January 6, 2015.
  2. ^ RE Ashcroft: Breeding biology and survival of Puffins. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford 1976. cit. in: Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer: Handbuch der Vögel Mitteleuropas , Volume 8 / II, Charadriiformes (3rd part) Snipe, seagull and alken birds. Aula, Wiesbaden, 1999. ISBN 3-923527-00-4 : pp. 1234-1235.
  3. Harrison et al., P. 174.
  4. a b c d Gaston et al., P. 284.
  5. Bauer et al., Volume 1, p. 560.
  6. Euan Dunn: Puffins . Ed .: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Bloomsbury Wildlife, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-4729-6520-2 , pp. 29 .
  7. Erik Gauger: Puffin Rally to the Látrabjarg Cliffs - Interview with Erpur Snær Hansen. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
  8. Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer: Handbuch der Vögel Mitteleuropas , Volume 8 / II, Charadriiformes (3rd part) Schnepfen-, seagull and alkenvögel. Aula, Wiesbaden, 1999. ISBN 3-923527-00-4 : pp. 1240-1241.
  9. Bauer et al., P. 560.
  10. a b c d Gaston et al., P. 286.
  11. a b Gaston et al., P. 287.
  12. ^ S. Wanless, JA Morris and MP Harris (1988): Diving behavior of guillemot Uria aalge, puffin Fratercula arctica and razorbill Alca torda as shown by radio-telemetry. In: Journal of Zoology Volume 216, pp. 73-81, doi : 10.1111 / j.1469-7998.1988.tb02416.x .
  13. Fratercula arctica . BirdLife International 2004: Detailed species account from Birds in Europe: population estimates, trends and conservation status (PDF)
  14. ^ MP Harris: Puffin . In: D. Wingfield Gibbons, JB Reid and RA Chapman: The New Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland: 1988-1991. Poyser, London 1993, pp. 230-231, ISBN 0-85661-075-5 .
  15. ^ The National Trust: Puffin population in decline ( Memento of July 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  16. Number of Puffin pairs plummets on Shetland . In: The Independent . July 17, 2015 ( independent.co.uk [accessed March 27, 2017]).
  17. ↑ Extinction of species: Puffins and Co are disappearing from old breeding areas . ( Spektrum.de [accessed on March 28, 2017]).
  18. Associated Press: Atlantic puffin population is in danger, scientists warn . In: The Guardian . June 3, 2013, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed March 27, 2017]).
  19. BirdLife factsheet on the puffin . Retrieved January 6, 2015.

literature

  • Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel , Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds. Aula-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 .
  • Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim , Kurt M. Bauer: Handbook of the birds of Central Europe. Volume 8 / II: Charadriiformes. 3rd part: snipe, gull and alken birds. Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-923527-00-4 , pp. 1229-1257.
  • Anthony J. Gaston, Ian L. Jones: The Auks. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-854032-9 .
  • Collin Harrison, Peter Castell: Fledglings, Eggs and Nests of Birds in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Aula-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2004, ISBN 3-89104-685-5 .
  • L. Svensson, PJ Grant, K. Mullarney, D. Zetterström: The new cosmos bird guide - All species of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9 .
  • Mike P. Harris / Sarah Wanless: The Puffin . T & AD Poyser, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-4081-0867-3 .

Web links

Commons : Atlantic Puffin  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: puffin  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations