Andrew Davies
Member
Adult puffin showing articulation of beak and barbs on back on tongue
A Year in the Life of a Puffin Post 10!
Adult puffins have a varied diet of any small fish, crustacean, small squid or marine worm but rely on a good source of small fish, the most commonest being the sandeel, within a few tens of kilometres from the colony to be able to bring enough food back for the chick. Smaller sandeels tend to be brought back early in the season, possibly selected by the adults, and the size increases slightly as the fish grow.
They have a number of morphological adaptations to enable them to achieve the seemingly impossible feat of catching multiple fish on the same fishing trip. The roof of the palate is covered in backward-facing spines which hold fish in place and the back of the tongue also has a row of spines at its base which push each fish backwards as they are caught in succession.
Finally, the jaw is articulated to allow the upper and lower mandibles to open almost parallel to each other. The record for the number of sandeels at any one time is 61 by a puffin on St Kilda but these were tiny larval stage fish and the norm is 8-12 average size fish for Skomer puffins. A popular myth is that the sandeels are arranged with their heads facing alternate directions but in reality this is random.
Most puffins breeding on Skomer forage within 15km of the island and it only takes them twelve minutes to return at an cruising speed of 70-80km/hr, beating their wings at a very rapid rate of around 400 beats per minute. This is a consequence of their small wing area to weight ratio which means they have a high stalling speed giving rise to the comical sight of a puffin crash landing on land or into the sea.
Their design comes into its own, however, when they are observed underwater with their partly bent wings propelling them with great speed and their feet acting as rudders giving them surprising agility.
