Tufted Puffin Habitat & Range

Starting around may puffins return from their winters out at sea. Good places to find tufted puffin colonies are along rocky cliffs generally near open waters. The rookeries will be in similar locations where soil is available to burrow. Burrows are usually 3 to 4 feet deep. In rockier places they may nest. A puffin only lays one egg per year. The male and female take turns incubating the egg for six to seven weeks. Chicks are born in July to early August. In winter puffins move to the Northern Pacific, puffins will raft together, rafts can reach numbers into the thousands. Young will spend their first summer at sea, not returning to land until their second summer.

While swimming puffins will try to keep distance between them and people before diving under or flying away. A slow calm approach is best when wanting to get close to puffins. Rafts of puffins can sometimes be found miles out from shore in early and late summer.

Tufted puffins feed mostly on zooplankton and fish such as including herring, capelin, and sand lance.