shewhomust | The discreet charm of the puffin (Reply)

And the reason why we were driving south (past Sumburgh Airport, where the road crosses the runway with a sign saying "Ahead Only") was to see the sights of Sumburgh, the southernmost tip of Shetland's Mainland. There's a lighthouse, and a fascinating complex of archaeological remains (layer upon layer, back into the past) and best of all, there are puffins. And the puffin, as we know, is my totem animal.

It's all about the cute, obviously. Mostly I don't do cute. People go all soppy over kittens, and yes, it's very pleasant to hold that tiny handful of fluff and needles, and yes, it's very touching to be purred at and trusted by something so small and fragile. But puffins - puffins, I have to admit, are cute. Look at their little faces! And their little red triangle feet. Aaw...

Two puffins, one looking out of its burrow

In a hole in the ground there lived a puffin. Two, in fact. Here they are, the smaller female just beginning to emerge (this picture was taken just before the one above). They spend the winter at sea, and then in the summer they return to land, often to the same burrow (and usually to the same mate) as last year, where they lay their single egg. According to Wikipedia: "Male puffins perform most of the work of clearing out the nest area, which is sometimes lined with grass, feathers or seaweed." - Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a puffin-hole, and that means comfort, in fact.

Fratercula Arctica, little northern brother.. You may argue that the French call them macareux moine, monkish macareux (whatever they are), and that fratercula is also the word for a friar; and I'd counter by asking what sort of friar looks like these sea parrots, these waiters wearing clown masks? Humans are always prone to anthropomorphism, and with puffins, our tendency to see other species in our own image runs riot. Perhaps it's their upright posture, their alert expression, their sociable nature, their conversational habits: Iceland on the Web describes them as talking in their underground burrows, in a "soft growling-moaning." and promises "If you sit quietly on the grass, you'll hear them talking underground in their nest.": And that pair of birds knocking their beaks together in the picture - that is, indeed, courtship behaviour.

I watched them flying off the cliff, still semi-upright; the body hangs in a curve, as if that smart black jacket were still suspended a coat hanger, which someone was lifting up: shoulders high, head down, feet trailing and wings whirring like mad. I tried to photograph this, but failed. This sketch catches it well. It's as if flying doesn't come naturally to these sea birds - and indeed, like penguins, they apparently swim better than they fly. I'd love to see that. But this photo looks to me less like flying, more like someone hurling themself off a great height, hoping that there will be deep water to catch them when they land.

A fledgeling puffin is a puffling. (No, I don't have a picture of a puffling. Have another puffin picture anyway. You can't have too many puffin pictures). This puffling photo is part of a gallery documenting the annual puffling rescue in Iceland's Westmann islands: some of the pufflings are distracted by the lights of the town, and instead of flying out to sea, fly into the town, and have to be rescued. Fluffy, dazzled, bewildered, and referred to by a silly name; what could be cuter than a puffling?* There's a book about it, it seems, for children. An article in the National Geographic takes a less starry eyed view of the proceedings, pointing out that despite this rescue mission seems a lot of fuss over a bird which is not only not endangered, it is also widely eaten in Iceland.

Despite which, I think I may have to go to Iceland next...

*Other than a puffin, that is. Yet another way in which this bird is extraordinary, the baaaaby is out-cuted by the adult (and that's the adult in its summer - breeding - colours, striped beak and red feet).