flight of the puffins

Each spring, after 8 months of being out on the vast and remote waters of the Atlantic Ocean, a truly remarkable journey takes place, as it has done for millennia.

Atlantic Puffins in the tens of thousands abandon the deep blue security of their ocean home and driven by the overpowering urge to reproduce, clamber onto the rocky cliffs of Newfoundland shores, to reconnect with their lifelong mate, kiss, flirt and in the water copulate to produce one egg.  

Guided by instinct, and by the stars, they head unerringly for their traditional breeding ground where - after a ritual courtship - they will pair off into monogamous couples and mate. 

Although a seabird, their nests are burrows on land, and each year a half million of them return to their same homes with the same mate. 

The journey on land is hazardous, and rapacious with many predatory threats waiting to snatch the young pufflings; gulls, foxes, eagles, and even house cats wait like mafia hitmen outside the barrows for a curious puffling, once born, to venture naively outside. Both the male and female puffins take turns protecting their precious egg and once born, the baby puffling is cared for by one parent while the other goes back to the sea to find food. It takes 8 weeks for the eggs to hatch and then only 6 weeks to teach the puffling to fly, and dive into the deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean to fish before the departure back out to the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean.