Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) are comical little birds that enjoy the love of many people. These birds belong to the auk family (Alcidae) which also includes guillemots, razorbills, murrelets, and auklets. Puffins’ relatives that can be spotted in Alderney include guillemots and razorbills.
Alderney's Puffins
Puffins on Burhou / Photo by Bill Black
Learn about the puffins of Alderney and their behaviours.
Puffins / Photo by Bill Black
Average lifespan: 20–25 years, although some individuals have been recorded living for up to 40 years.
Razorbills ©Mike Snelle
Razorbills
Alan Williams / naturepl.com
Guillemots
Where do Atlantic puffins live?
Atlantic puffins are seabirds. Most of their life is spent out at sea in the Atlantic Ocean. Puffins only come to land for breeding. They can be found breeding on rocky sea cliffs and offshore islands. Alderney’s puffins breed on Burhou, where approximately 100 pairs nest each year.
Puffins rafting / Photo by Bill Black, taken in 2007
What do puffins eat?
Puffins feed mainly on fish although pelagic worms, shrimps and a variety of crustaceans and molluscs have also been found in puffins’ stomachs. Puffins love sand eels, herring, sprats and capelin. These fish are high in oil content. Other fish may be taken because they contain more water or simply because they are abundant in the area. A puffin may need to catch over forty fish a day, depending on the size of the fish.
Puffin with fish in its beak / Photo by Bill Black
A general timeline of Alderney’s puffins
Breeding season: Mid-March – July.
Puffins rafting near Burhou / Photo by Bill Black
From mid-March: Puffins start to be seen rafting near Burhou, floating together on the water’s surface.
Puffins billing / Photo by Bill Black
Late March – early April: Puffins land on Burhou and begin reuniting with their mates, cleaning their burrows, and lining their nests. Puffins are loyal to their colony and their nest so they will return to the same place and the same nest for their breeding season.
Puffin with its egg / Liz Morgan
April: The breeding season starts. Each puffin pair lays a single egg. The incubation of an egg lasts about 39-43 days (Boag & Alexander, 1986, p. 82).
Puffins carrying fish back to their nests
Mid-May - June: most puffin eggs hatch. From this time onwards, puffins start bringing home sand eels for their chicks. Please keep an eye out on the PuffinCam to help us spot fish-carrying puffins. It is also a first sign from outside the burrow that a chick survives. Both male and female puffins care for their puffling.
In other puffin colonies around the British coast, puffins may still lay eggs in early June, which means the eggs will hatch in July.
The fledging period may range from 34–50 days, although 38-44 days would be more common (Boag & Alexander, 1986, p. 95). The length of the period depends on the availability of food.
Puffling leaving its burrow in July / Puffin Cam
July: Most pufflings will leave their burrows by the middle of July, usually in the darkness of the night to avoid the predation of gulls. By the end of July, almost no puffins are seen on Burhou.
Once they leave their burrows and reach the water, young puffins are on their own. They start diving and begin their life in the vastness of the ocean. Puffins will not come back to land until 2-3 years later.
Puffin behaviours
The puffin is an inquisitive and social bird. Each puffin is interested in its neighbour. Puffins often nest near each other. This is also a strategy to increase the survival of the chicks. The chicks that were nested in the centre of the colony are more likely to be less affected by predation than those on the outskirts of the colony (Boag & Alexander, 1986, p. 52).
Puffins billing with curious neighbours watching / Screenshot from Puffin Cam
Puffins rely on signals, vocalisations, and visual cues to communicate with one another. They also want to stay in constant visual contact with other puffins, otherwise, they’ll panic. One puffin suddenly taking off from the colony will startle other nearby birds into a panic flight which may unsettle the whole colony (Boag & Alexander, 1986, p. 63). That’s why when a puffin has the intention of flying off, it will signal its intention by lowering the body in a horizontal position and wings opened a little.
You probably know that puffins use rabbit burrows to make their nests. A rabbit can be given a nasty peck to force it to leave its lovely home and then the puffin will do a bit of digging and take over the burrow completely.
Puffins and rabbits on Burhou / Photo by Bill Black
Asserting dominance
Three main behaviours that a puffin may display to assert dominance are head jerking, gaping, and walking upright. Puffins may also march on the spot with their webbed feet deliberately splayed. A puffin’s beak and the colour of its feet are signs of maturity, so puffins tend to make these visible to other puffins when they want to assert dominance.
Head jerking: similar to the head flicking used in courtship but with one or two seconds in between rather than a continuous movement.
Gaping: A puffin holds its beak wide open as a warning.
Walking upright: A puffin makes itself look bigger with its chest puffed out, walking dramatically as if it is marching almost in slow motion.
Adult puffins protect their burrows from sub-adults by demonstrating a dignified upright posture. A disrespectful young puffin may even be pecked to keep it in order.
Love is in the air
Puffin pairs strengthen their bond through billing (rubbing their beaks together), digging burrows together, and resting alongside one another.
Puffins on Burhou / Photo by Bill Black
Landing
Puffins, especially the sub-adults, take great care when they land. Sub-adult puffins could find themselves vulnerable when they come onto land. Therefore, they tend to choose the places where other puffins are around. Before landing, puffins will also wheel around which means they fly in a circuit. Sub-adults wheel more circuits than adults before they land.
When a puffin lands to join a colony, it often leans forward with its body horizontal and low to the ground, head kept low and held forward. This is an appeasement posture to prevent it from being attacked by other puffins which it has joined.
Learning from the more experienced
Sub-adult puffins learn from older birds about life on land. Young birds look to older birds for guidance, safety and breeding behaviours. For example, sub-adult puffins may try picking grass and flowers after seeing an adult do so to line its nest. Sub-adults may also copy the behaviour of fluttering their feathers into place after observing an adult. When young puffins first arrive at the colony and inspect an area for its burrow, it will seek assurances from adult puffins.
Puffin with its bright beak / Photo by Bill Black
Did you know that you could tell the relative age of a puffin by observing its beak? The grooves on a puffin’s beak can help you estimate its age. Read more here. The photos on page 27 can help you visualise it better.
A puffin’s appearance is different between the summer and the winter. In the summer, they have their colourful beak but in winter, they lose this feature. The rosette near the gape looks smaller and paler in the winter than it is in summer and the legs look pale yellow compared with orange in summer. (Harris, 2014, p. 25)
How we monitor puffins
Puffins are monitored using PuffinCam, boat surveys and a post season visit to Burhou to conduct an Apparently Occupied Burrow (AOB) census, which was verified using footage recorded from PuffinCam.
You can read more about puffin monitoring methods in the Ramsar Annual Review.
You can also explore the trends of Alderney’s puffin populations on the Alderney Biodiversity Centre.
Puffin Cam: you can watch live puffin activities via Puffin Cam on this website and on our YouTube channel. Activity within the colony is often greatest during the evening, making it an excellent time to watch puffins on the Puffin Cam.
Puffins used to breed on a little stack in Hanaine Bay up until 2011. After that, no puffins were seen breeding near Alderney, other than on Burhou. The probable reason the puffins couldn’t continue breeding in Hanaine bay was because of rats.
Puffin activities on Puffin Cam (AOB - Apparently Occupied Burrow) / Screenshot from Puffin Cam
The seabird wreck / seabird stranding in 2026
Prolonged stormy weather throughout January and February has led to mass seabird deaths across the coasts of the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. Strong winds and rough seas have left thousands of birds exhausted or unable to find food, with many eventually washing ashore. On Alderney, by 31 March 2026, 56 stranded seabirds had been recorded. Most of these were Atlantic puffins.
This tragic event reminds us of the seabird wreck of 2014 when storms caused a decrease of more than 20% in puffin numbers in Alderney before populations gradually recovered in the following years. Our data officer talked about this in a Science Talk in February.
If you’d like to see puffins rafting in water, you can book a seabird boat trip with us. We often run boat trips on Wednesdays and Saturdays between April and early October. Please note that the boat trips depend on the weather.
Boat trip with Sula of Braye / Photo by Thanh Doan
References:
- Boag, D., & Alexander, M. (1986). The Atlantic Puffin. Blandford.
- Harris, M. (2014). Aging Atlantic Puffins Fratercula arctica in summer and winter. Seabird Journal, 27, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.61350/sbj.27.21
- McDevitt, N., Broadhurst-Allen, M., Scragg, M., Lewis, M., Huitson. K., Cox, T., Smith, L., & Purdie, A. (2026) Alderney’s West Coast and Burhou Islands (and Other Sites) Ramsar Site Annual Review 2025. 01. pp 177. States of Alderney.