Scientists and bird enthusiasts from all over the world come to … The opportunity to get close to the birds is a welcome one for most photographers since the tiny birds can be hard to capture on film from far away. Audubon scientists tracked breeding puffins from Maine to finally learn where they pass the colder months—in a maze of underwater canyons and mountains southeast of Massachusetts. The Atlantic puffin is a species of seabird in the order Charadriiformes.It is in the auk family, Alcidae, which includes the guillemots, typical auks, murrelets, auklets, puffins, and the razorbill. However, over the past decade the puffin population has been in decline, possibly because of shifting fish population as … Iceland is the home to more than half of the wold’s puffin population. They are well suited to life on the sea and mostly eat fish. They know how to hunt themself. An adult puffin is only about 18 cm tall and weighs around 500 grams, or about as much as a can of soda. Puffins are carnivores and live off small fish such as herring, hake and sand eels. It’s strange that no one has thought of putting puffins on Icelandic soda cans. Puffins Watching Tours in Iceland. More than 75% of the seabirds fitted with "geolocator" tags headed for the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, rather than staying in the North Sea. But they are not everywhere there are only some spots where you can see puffins in Iceland. Puffins from the North Sea's largest breeding colony venture much further afield during the winter than previously thought, a study has shown. Puffins spend the autumn and winter out at sea but return to land to breed in late spring. ... We were in Iceland in the winter – so no puffins for us! After the chicks are born, they go through a rather fast fledgling period of about six or seven weeks. Without a doubt, Iceland is the world’s puffin watching capital. The rhinoceros auklet (Cerorhinca monocerata) and the puffins are closely related, together composing the tribe Fraterculini. Puffins spend most of their lives out at sea, resting on the waves when not swimming. Science Where Do Maine's Atlantic Puffins Go for the Winter? Puffins mate for life. They only return to land to breed. Your only chance would be to visit the Westman Islands, since they have a few tame puffins at the Sæheimar museum. Wild puffins leave after the nesting season (usually in mid/late August, but depending on the temperatures) and spend the winter at sea far from the coast. ... Icelandic waters are still very rich in a lot of fishes and there is no need to feed the birds.