Despite their size and gentle appearance, puffins will fight to keep their catch of sand eels from an opportunistic gull
Few birds are as paradoxical as the puffin. It rivals the robin as Britain’s best-loved bird, yet most people have never seen one in the flesh. In spring and summer, they gather in large, noisy colonies to breed, but spend the autumn and winter far out to sea in the North Atlantic. And despite their small size, and gentle, clown-like appearance, puffins will fight to save their precious catch of sand eels from being seized by an opportunistic – and much larger – skua or gull.
Puffins, like penguins, have a very human quality, too. When the late Bill Oddie and I filmed puffins at a colony on Shetland, he memorably described them as “looking like old men in dinner jackets, waiting to go into supper at the club”, while the bird’s scientific name, Fratercula arctica, translates as “little brother of the Arctic”.
