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The Atlantic Puffin is a seabird native to the Atlantic Ocean. Because of their bright orange beaks and silly walk, they’re also called the “Clown of the Sea”. The beak color changes through the year, from a bright orange during the breeding season to a darker gray during the winter. This grayer beak is accompanied by a score of other pallette changes to the Atlantic Puffin, but these winter colorings aren’t often seen by humans, as these birds tend to spend the entire winter season at sea. At sea, the Atlantic Puffin spends most of its time alone, and will not return to land until the breeding season begins again. During the breeding season, the Atlantic Puffin joins breeding colonies on small isolated islands, where they are safe from ground predators. The Atlantic Puffin is monogamous, and the parents take turns incubating the eggs.

The Atlantic Puffin has recently been changed in conservation status from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable”, due to a rapid decrease in their population throughout Europe. There are several reasons for this decline, including: Climate Change, fishing nets, introduction of predators, pollution (You know, the usual human activity), but the point is that, while the Atlantic Puffin does thrive in some areas it is slowly vanishing from others. You can read about conservation efforts (and donate) at SOS Puffin, a Scottish focused group, or at Project Puffin, for a US centered group (it’s put on by the Audubon Society!) Project Audubon is the source of that one image of a puffin with a decoy puffin: they put a bunch of decoy puffins on islands so that puffins would think the islands were breeding colonies, and roost there.