Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Puffins
Puffins
are pelagic or sea birds of the Alcid or Auk family.
They look similar to
penguins in being white in front and black at the back.
They also stand
upright, dive and swim, and walk clumsily.
Puffins can also dive to depths of 60 meters for two minutes at a
time.
But puffins can also fly;
and
because of their short wings they have to flap them very rapidly, about six times per second.
Their speed can reach 88 km/hour.
Puffins
also have the unique capability of holding their catch of fish in their beak and
hunt.
This ability is due to their spiky tongue
which hold fast the fish against and across the upper part of their beak.
Puffins are capable of holding as many fish as there is space along
the beak.
A puffin holding many fish dangling across its beak in flight
presents a spectacular awesome sight.
This is part of nature’s way to minimize
the number of trips for the puffins between catch and nest.
Puffins diet comprise small
fish, sand eels, capelin, herrings and sprats, and animal plankton;
with the
occasional squid, mollusc or crustacean which they hunt just under the surface
of the water.
Puffins normally hunt for
about 25 seconds underwater each time;
they hunt, float and rest, catching as
many as 30 fish before returning to land to feed their chick.
Their predators
are gulls, hawks, eagles and foxes; also cats, dogs and rats.
In the northerly regions people hunt puffins
for their meat and egg.
Puffins can live about
20 years
Puffins are sociable animals,
gathering on grassy cliff tops in vast number of over a million individuals.
Their
social behavior and antics are very interesting to observe.
They use their beaks to shovel and their webbed claws to excavate burrows more than a meter in depth to lay an egg.
Puffins mate for life and the single egg is incubated by
both parents until it hatches by six weeks.
Puffins form long-term bonds.
Puffin couples often reunite at the same burrow site each year.
Iceland is the breeding home
of perhaps 60 percent of Atlantic puffins.
The Atlantic puffins forms part of
the national diet in Iceland.
Puffins are hunted by a technique called
"sky fishing",
which involves catching
low-flying birds with a big net. Their meat is commonly featured on hotel menus.
The fresh heart of a puffin is eaten raw as a traditional Icelandic delicacy.
Of
the few species of puffins the Atlantic puffin is the handsome one.
The
Atlantic puffin has a large triangle beak, almost doubling the size of its
head;
and the beak is flat from side to side.
The Atlantic puffin is over a
foot long with a wingspan of nearly two feet and weighs less than half a
kilogram.
Its colourful beak and its neat white face and reddish orange webbed
feet presents it as an enticingly cute lovable pet.
# posted by chunmu @ 3:15 AM 
