the.com/puffin
a clown-faced sea parrot that can carry a dozen fish at once
means A small, stout North Atlantic seabird with a brightly colored triangular bill, known for nesting in cliffside burrows and ferrying mouthfuls of fish back to its young.
from Oddly, the name didn't start with the bird we now picture. "Puffin" comes from Middle English words like "poffin" or "pophyn," which referred to the cured, fatty carcass of a young seabird — likely the Manx shearwater, a different chick entirely — that was eaten as a delicacy. The word is thought to be linked to "puff," describing the swollen, fattened look of the plump fledgling. Over time the name drifted onto the clown-faced bird we call a puffin today, leaving the original eaten chick behind.
- beak trick
- Holds up to 30 fish crosswise simultaneously
- colorful bill
- Bright plates shed and dull off-season
- underwater flight
- Dives 60 meters using wings as paddles
- loyal pairs
- Mate for life, returning to same burrow
- land clumsy
- Crash-lands but flies 88 kilometers per hour
westman islands puffin colony — iceland's heimaey island hosts ~1 million atlantic puffins each breeding season
faroe islands puffin hunts — traditionally hunted for food with ~2,000 birds caught annually in the faroes