Oh, hey, it's your girlfriend who never leaves the house without a cardigan, Alie Ward, and I guess speaking of cold, let's hit the blustery shore and get pooped on. It's Puffins and people, it's a good time. So the year was this one. And many dozens of you tagged me in an Instagram post with a certified Puffinologist. And I took that as a calling from the universe and from you to ask this bird person to please spend some time with me electronically so I can ask about a whole life. And that I did.
So first off, is Puffinology a real word? Would we be here if it weren't? That's questionable. But yes, Puffinology is well established in news articles and ornithology circles, so it is game on. Now Puffins, what are they? They are black and white, orange-billed seabirds. And their name derives from the word Pufon, which is thought to come from the look of this swollen salted meat, but of a completely different seabird.
Something called a manks' sheer water bird. Doesn't even look like a puffin. It's a small gray seagull looking thing, but it's named scientifically puffinous puffinous. However, that manks' seabird is not a puffin. Puffinous puffinous, not a puffin. What is a puffin? The genus Fratercula is all puffins. And it comes from Frater for a monk dressed in a dark cloak with its back. So what the fuck? So puffins in the scientific terms are not puffins.
But puffins aren't named puffins. It's confusing. Fraterculology is not a word. And puffinology is. So we're doing that. We're talking puffins. Now hold on to your butts because boy-houty, it only gets more revealing and cuter. And by the end, you'll wish that you could give birth to a puffin and love it forever. But before we get there, quick thanks to patrons at patreon.com-sash-ologies, who submitted their fine questions for this episode. You also can join for about 25 cents in a week.
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Tuggremmy, they Gremmy said, woof, woof. Also witchcraft wand. Thank you for listening. Since you were nine, sorry for all the swears. Again, we now have small Gs. If anyone needs them. Okay, puffinology. Thisologist, absolutely delightful and knowledgeable, busted so much puffin flimflam. They got their bachelors in biology at St. Mary's University in Nova Scotia. And they're now a master student at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. And they are currently studying the world's most charismatic seabird, the Atlantic puffin.
So get in a blanket burrow, stare at some lapping waves and open your ears to learn whether you should kiss one. Who eats them? If they're neat freaks or not, they're surprising life expectancy. The journey puffins go on before they settle down, how monogamous they are, why they are discoboards, how they make their marriages work so well. The toilets with the best views. Why someone would toss a puffin? Star Wars trivia, serial lore, and who should not become a puffinologist?
And so much more. When orthologist, field researcher, and legit puffinologist, Jillian Taylor. Hi, my name is Jill Taylor and my pronouns are she, they and puffinologist. Correct. Yeah, has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? I got tagged so many times on an Instagram post of yours about puffinology. So I ple- like please from so many people. Did you start calling yourself a puffinologist? Like tell me a little bit about the background of the word. And also, would you be called in academic circles?
Fratercolonologist or is it just straight up puffinologist? Anything goes. The Latin names are, yeah, I can't even say it properly. For Turkula, Artica is the Atlantic puffin scientific name. And that sounds horrible. So puffinologist this way better. It's official.
When did I start calling myself a puffinologist? Probably after spending two complete summers, the entire of the summers watching puffins for eight hours a day. I don't know if that's official qualifications, but yes. Yes, that qualifies you as a puffinologist. Anyone who study something is aologist. So I think you count as someone who's expert level puffinologist, because that's more time than anyone listening has probably spent watching puffins.
Almost too much time arguably. I guess a lot, many hours in the field. There's never. So many people were so excited because puffins. They're so cute. I mean, they are the cutest. How much of it is just marveling at how cute they are and how much is like I got to take notes on this. You just implode inwardly at how cute they are. Their cuteness doesn't wear off as tired and wet and soggy and sleep deprived. You might be in the field. The puffins cuteness stays the exact same group.
I can believe that. First off, what is a puffin? Is it just an upright penguin? Is it closer to a seagull? I've never seen a puffin in real life, especially in the wild. So start with me there. So puffins are part of the Ock family, which so Alcadeh. There's four species of puffins. The Atlantic puffin, which I study. The horn puffin, the tufted puffin, and the rhinoceros ocklet, which actually used to be known as the horn build puffin, but isn't officially a puffin anymore.
Okay, side note, the rhinoceros ocklet is mostly gray and it has a nose horn during the breeding season and it also lives for drama. Rather, text on him is stupid because it's been called not a puffin and then it turned out it was misnamed and it's actually genetically the most original puffin, but it's not in the Fratercula genus.
But because of that, puffinologist can be split on whether to actually include it, but in general, don't let the name fool you. The rhinoceros ocklet is a puffin. It is not a rhinoceros either. Isn't it comforting to know how much of history is just built on oopsies? So don't be so hard on yourself. We're all humans and puffins.
But the Atlantic puffin holds up the bulk of the world's puffins. The other three species are found at the Pacific side. You're in LA, right? Yeah, yeah. So yes, those are your, that's your corner of the world. And the ock family includes smurs, gillamonts, puffins, murelets, and razorbills. And fun fact, there actually no ock species in the southern hemisphere, only in the northern hemisphere. How is an ock different from a penguin?
Penguins of puffins are actually not related. I know they look like they are, but that's only because of convergent evolution. So similar environmental pressures, but they're not related. No, I mean, they're both birds, but that's about it. I figured that of course they're related that they must be. I had no idea. They're similar coloration. They'll write very similar coloration.
Okay, let's go back to the penguins. The episode with Dr. Tom Hart, where we first learned why these unrelated ocean species get confused at first sight. It's amazing how many species are both black and white and that counter shading like comrades like like so many seabirds and also a lot of killer whales and things like that.
There's counter shading is camouflage. So if you look at them in the water from above, they're dark against a dark background. And if you look at them from underneath, they're light against the light background. Oh, my God. You just see black and white animals everywhere because that seems to be just a natural way to camouflage yourself in the ocean.
I never even thought about that or because in penguins, they're wearing the same fabulous outfit and just slaying and getting slayed, but I don't think about that. So aside from being a snack for whales, what else do they have in common with penguins? Similar diving habits to they're both very ocean oriented birds, but yes, you're not the first person. It's either penguins or two cans are the two other ones that people are like, oh, puffins, penguins, two cans. These are not the same.
More bonkers facts about the puffins bright two cany-bill and a bit hang tight. Were you drawn to ornithology or marine science? How did you become a puffinologist? How did you come to study one of the cutest species of birds? So for full disclosure, I am not a bird person. I beg your pardon. I, yeah, the puppens are the first bird I've actually ever studied. It started with, in my undergrad, I was studying black and gold, howler monkeys in Paraguay.
And then we were on to American eels and then it was snapping turtles. So it was primates, fish, reptiles. And then I was like, okay, well, the complete this that I guess I got to do birds and I guess insects next maybe, but you had to be a seabird. And puppens are really good divers and scuba diving is one of my favorite things in the world. So I find them quite relatable and likable that way.
It had to be something next to the ocean. So that's kind of how I just stumbled upon puffins. It was never a planned thing. I was not raises an ornithologist from birth. But I've come to appreciate the ocean quite a bit. And the puffin also appreciates the ocean. How did you get involved in scuba diving? Did you grow up near the ocean or did you grow up like landlocked and the ocean seemed like something you were drawn to?
I grew up in Nova Scotia and Halifax Nova Scotia. So right next to Atlantic Ocean. And yeah, that's where I learned a scuba dive. So I'm going to Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador now. So next province over. So if you think that Nova Scotia isn't real, like I did for a while, like Narnia or Xanadu, I regret to inform you that we are living lives. Nova Scotia exists.
And it is this chicken tender shaped piece of seaside land about the size of Sri Lanka, but right off the coast of Maine. And yes, Newfoundlands and Labrador retrievers are named after those places because apparently they just end from really great working dogs for some old school seafaring fish mongers. But yeah, Jill has spent her academic career up and down the eastern seaboard of Canada. But same Atlantic Ocean, a lot of the same species. The Atlantic Ocean is very near and dear to my heart.
How thick is your diving suit? Very, very thick. But the thickest vaccines they sell. And in the summer, the warmest the ocean temperatures get in you from land. If you're lucky October, it's around 14 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit. I'm sorry. Cold 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit, which for me personally is not like coconut shell bikini season. I'm not having it cold. Yes. So it's a two piece seven mill. So 14 millimeters in the core and then seven millimeters everywhere.
Oh my gosh. You can't move your arms at all. You're little flappy wings. Exactly. So Jill's master's advisor is a visual ecologist, meaning he studies how animals use their site or their lack thereof to their advantage. And she says puffins are very visual creatures. People in a spot opened up in her advisor's lab. And she says it just fell into place perfectly. And because of her now even more people care about puffins. So it worked out for us to.
And you do some outreach to on social media. And people are stoked about your work with puffins. Hi, my name is Jill and I'm a puffin ecologist work on the largest puffin colony in all of North America. Second only to Iceland in the world. I'm along for a day in the life of a puffinologist on a remote island off the east coast of Newfoundland.
What is a myth? What is some flimflam that you find yourself busting over and over again? Like what is the biggest lie people believe about puffins that you're constantly correcting. Well, besides thinking that they're penguins. They are. They're so much smaller than everyone thinks that they are.
You see these beautiful zoom lens photos and you think that this bird is going to be like this nice big bill and they're actually really tiny. They're only like 27 meters tall. They're really, really small. They only weigh about like a small sack of rice like 500 or 600 grams max eight inches tall and around one pound of sweet cute stinky birdies. I love them.
They're much smaller than everyone thinks that they're going to be before they see them in real life. Another misconception that I feel like a lot of people don't know about is that these very conspicuous bright orange bills that they have. They don't have them all year round. This is only a breeding color and they lose those bill plates in the winter. So in the winter, they're this really drab gray color.
And like the first people studying puffins thought it was a completely different species because it looks so different. I don't know if I want to use the word ugly, but they're definitely not as pretty. They're much prettier in this every time. What is a bill plate? Is that something that they just shed? Do they shed the whole bill or they just shed like scales off of the bill?
I just the outer bill plate is the best way I can describe it. They keep their bill. It just is this dark gray color. And then they develop these bright orange red and yellow bill plates and other eye ornaments.
And I looked it up in the eye ornaments that they grow and shed make their little round eyes look kind of triangular. Like if you had a witch hat or a candy corn with an eye in the middle of it or like a heavy straight eyeliner in the bottom lash and then a black triangle like a clown on the lid. And this was confusing for some early old school puffinologist because after the beak and eye ornamentation is shed and falls off, these birds get the fuck out of dodge on the offseason.
And they don't come back until it's mating time again and they're gussied up ornamentally again. Also, if you were to Google like me puffins plus ornaments, you're going to find all kinds of holiday tree decorations celebrating these little birds. And not a lot of close ups of their beaks falling off. Unfortunately, yeah, their bills are quite elaborate. And so how many months out of the year are they flashy like that?
Only about four, their breeding season, they come back to Newfoundland every year from April to August. The other eight months the year, they're just out at sea cruising. The North Atlantic is very large. So they're just out there chilling for eight months the year and then they come back to the same islands every year to breed. How far can they fly before they need to touch down or do they touch down in the water and just take a nap, bobbing up and down.
They're bobbing most of the time they're just bobbing. Yeah. Do they tend to hang out in big groups just in case a shark happens to surface and try to scoop a bunch of them up. Like are they herders or are they pair kind of birds? I've heard in the winter months that they are a little more isolated and they go off and like groups of smaller and like ones or twos.
But at least in the breeding season, which is where I've spent most of my time looking at puffins is they do something called rafting where they'll come together as like hundreds of birds on the water and just hanging out together bobbing. Yeah, it's really it's really fun. They're just cruising through the waves together.
Do they ever go from the Atlantic coast to say the coast of Europe or the North Sea or do they stay kind of out in their islands and then come back to the same coast or do they migrate. They do migrate and that they are way for eight months the year. They've been found throughout the Mediterranean wintering as well as New York on the west coast of the North Atlantic.
Some of them have been found to travel quite a great deal, but they make it back to their their islands every year and these islands are some are far out to see and some are quite close to land. But these islands provide them quite a bit of protection from predators in that there's no foxes or minks to come and bother their chicks. Do they nest in cliffs or are they sand nesters or rock nesters what are their nests like.
So they live in something called a burrow they like grassy slopes and they dig this really cool maze of tunnels. It's really hard to walk on you basically to make sure you're not going to bust through anyone's roof when you're on the island. They lay their egg inside this burrow and then they raise that chick in the burrow and then six weeks after that chick hatches their their booted out and they're on their own.
So when you're studying it are you hanging out like in a tent on the shore with binoculars. What is it like studying them like like what kind of excursions are you up to. So I'm all in my field work has happened on great island which is one of the four islands in Whitlis Bay ecological reserve. The island is not the easiest to access on our little zodiac that we take in. You basically land and you have to climb up this really steep cliff to get to the top. We do have a cabin on the island.
I'm very fortunate to say not everyone's field site has a cabin on it. It's very basic. There's no toilet and then there's one light bulb of electricity if we ever get sunshine from the solar panels. But the actual studying of the puffins we construct a semi permanent blind close to the plot that we're studying them from. And that's just so that they can't see us and they're not disturbed. As soon as they see us they're taken off.
They don't like being near humans or I don't blame them or massive compared to them. And they're just they're scared and understandably a lot of the studying the research looks like sitting in the blind and really early mornings when the puffins get up. And then also in the evenings they seem to be most active in the mornings and the evenings and it's binoculars and it's sitting. That's just the observational part though.
There's other parts when we're banding them that always happens at night time. Are you taking notes in like a mole skin or are you do you have your laptop and you're noting things like what are you looking for when you're staring at them? No mole skin and the laptop isn't super rain friendly so try not to bring that but you're a typical right in the right notebook. But there's two main studies that I was a part of for this research project.
There was one that was looking at the social network of the colony so who interacts with who we go and band them and we can monitor how they do and subsequent years which burrows have chick success that sort of thing. But we can also use those bands to identify individuals on the plot to know, okay, that's Bob and he likes to hang out with Bruce and they spend all the time together and that sort of thing.
There's hundreds of thousands of birds on this island and they have a really complex social colony. Yeah, we're trying to keep track of that. We're trying to map that and we this is a side note. This is part of my project which is a very strange project in itself but cool nonetheless in that I actually taxidermied six owl puffins that we found dead don't worry. And we presented them to live birds to see how they react to a novel individual in that this is a really complex social colony.
They're long lived. They see the same neighbors year after year and we don't know how they recognize each other and what they do. Well, I can't tell you quite yet. I'm presenting I'm presenting those results at a conference next month. So I can't spoil too much. But let's just say there were some sex differences. What we saw between males and females. And you mentioned Bob and Bruce hanging out. Do they have the same sex friends? Do they sometimes pair up in non heterosexual pairs?
What are their friendships like when you say a complex social structure? Does that mean people are shit talking? People are having affairs. What's going on? Probably all the above. I will say anecdotally this is fun to give some context puffins are monogamous. They do make her life. They live to be about 25 years old. There was the same mate for about 25 years. Yeah.
Which is impressive in itself. I will maintain that I think that's only possible because they spend eight months at the year part at sea. But anyway, so they make her life really low divorce rates. So they're with the same mate every year. So whenever you're doing burrow checks, you're always finding like one male, one female and a chick or an egg, depending on what part of the breeding season you're in.
But my coworker found a burrow where there was actually two males and one female inside this nest. That's it. That potentially were all raising one chick together. So do what you want with that. But I think that's really sweet. Are they good parents? Do they co parent like do they both go out and get a fish and then barf in another baby's mouth or what kind of parenting roles do they have?
They are really good parents. They actually both males and females take turns incubating the egg and fishing for food for the baby puffling. Baby puffins are called pufflings, which is just really cute in itself. And they are literally a ball of fluff. Like think of the fluffiest thing you've ever seen and then it's fluffier than that. I can't handle that.
Right. Yeah, it is a lot. There's a lot to take in. But yes, they're really good parents. Some studies have found that the males do spend a little more time on burrow maintenance, which is fun. They're kind of getting their architecture, business in order. And then the females will in their activity budget spend a little bit more time foraging for fish for the puffling. But they both attend to the chick, which is really nice because that can't be said for all species for a lack of better term.
A lot of parents just fuck off and the puff and parents are attentive. Do they ever see their chicks again or after six weeks is like, see, does that chick disperse to a totally different colony or is it like they might be in that city of a hundred thousand puffs? They piece out once they're once they're at six weeks, it's like you're on your own learning how to fish.
It must be a really steep learning curve. Your whole life has been darkness in this beautifully muddy burrow for your entire existence. And then you're thrust into the world and you have to go fish for yourself as a harsh reality. So puffins take about four to five years to sexually mature. They will return to the islands that they were born on. So they'll come back, but they need a little bit of time before they're ready. What are they eating? I'm gonna guess fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.
You, you got it right on the head. Yeah. Kaplan, Sandlands, Herring, fish are their favorite, but if those aren't available, they will eat krill or other crustaceans like copapods, but no fish, fish is their main buffet. When it comes to their appearance, why are they so cute? Why do you think they look the way they do?
They're visual. They have a lot of visual attributes. Do they have big eyes to take that in, especially if they're in the burrows a lot? How are they well suited to their evolution? Yeah, that's a great question. Their, their colorization, I think, is a part of why they're so cute. Like this bright red orange bill only coming through in the breeding season to signal, hey, I'm ready to breed.
There's also very intricate individual differences in Bill Morphology, so they're quite elaborate and they have these intricate ridges and they have a rosette patch, which is like a fleshy yellow patch where their bill meets their face. They have eye ornaments as well and they are considered a fairly developed visual animal. Like other birds, like songbirds, have very unique vocalizations and can recognize each other from their unique songs.
But puffins don't, they do make sounds, but they're very, they're very different than what you'd think. And I think the best way to describe it is it sounds like an angry chainsaw. You have to look it up when it sounds like. It's a very unique sound. When it comes to making that bill color, is it expensive to make where are they getting the fuel to make those colors?
Yeah, so a lot of the bill coloration and puffins is definitely partially due to the cratinoids in their diet. So, Kaplan are fish that have a fairly high level of cratinoids, see with krill and crustaceans, the other food sources that I mentioned. And so they're able to use that to display this beautiful bill that is very, very recognizable.
I mentioned earlier that you're behind a blind. And I'm trying to figure out what that looks like. Is it a scrim? Is it like a gillisuit? Does it look like moss and rocks, but you have peepholes? Like what does it look like? We don't need to be that incognito. It is just a little wooden shack for lack of a better term. And we cut out, it is a peephole.
So we have a glass opening that we can look through. And then we put, it's like camouflage burlap. I guess it's more of a peephole than I first thought. You are too far off. There's two openings of the burlap so we can see through. So they can't really see us, which is nice, because I can't imagine going about your everyday life on a busy puffing colony and you look over and you see these two naked primates just staring at you. Maybe a little unnerving.
And I know you're, you're naked metaphorically as an ape, but how are you staying warm in a shack on an island looking at sea birds? Are you in so many parkas? Do you have a thermos of hot chocolate? What's happening? Yeah, May and Newfoundland is very chilly, very foggy, very rainy. Yeah, these islands are quite cold, but many, many layers. More layers than you think you're going to need.
But then it's hard because then come the dead of July. You can get some really hot days where you're just this blind is baking in the sun. So we have an hour of blind. You know, those, you can have them at the dollar store. They're little spray bottles with water in the fan and you go, yes, and it gives you a little, a little reprieve of coolness. So it's hot cold, all the extremes in between.
And then are you typically sleeping in that cabin? Are you taking the zodiac back every night? Or are you in the cabin for like a week? Yeah, there's no running water on the island. So we have to bring in all our water with us. And we thankfully, at the end of the week, get a boat ride back so we can shower, do some laundry, and then head back out.
Which doesn't sound like too much time. Like five days on the island, you're like, oh, that's the thing. Like I could go on a camping trip for five days. But when you're in a remote island, and there's not really great cell service. And it's just, yeah, it's very remote. You got to really like your coworkers.
I was going to say, is it typically two of you? And is it the same person? So you kind of know each other's rhythms? Or is it like you might be paired with Zach one week and Melanie the next and you just kind of where you see what happens? No, you're typically with the same person at least for the field season. And you get to know that person very well. I'm sure a little too well.
And no toilets. So if you're hydrating, you got to get used to getting through your layers and going off and peeing somewhere, right? Yeah, many many many pee breaks. Peeing is not so much an issue. But I will say for anything else, we do have a makeshift toilet in the bushes, which is nice. It's basically a bucket. We've sought off and nailed on a toilet seat lid. So at least it's a little comfortable.
But there's no covering. So it's a little wet if it's raining. But you do get to see whales while you're on the shitter. So I don't know. It's pretty good view. You can't beat that view. What kind of whales are you seeing? Mostly humpbacks and monkeys. Just casual. Just casual. Another day in the office. Yeah. When you're banding them at night, why are you doing it at night? Are they more chill at night? So it's easier to grab them and put an anchor on them?
It is an anchor that is exactly what it is. It's a little piece of jewelry. We go at night for two reasons. One, we want to be as least disruptive to them as possible. So we don't want to disturb their daily habits. So they're outfishing. They're out socializing. They're coming back and feeding their chick. And yeah, we want to keep that rhythm as normal as possible. And almost it'd be almost as if we're not there.
The second thing is that it's least disruptive, but it's also so we can find them. Because they're just out and about. They could be out rafting on the other side. The island, they could be out. Wheeling and the air, which is also cool behavior. They do. They find a circular pattern. Just a PS. I found out on Cornell's All About Birds website that quote non breeders at the colony often form flocks.
And they spend hours flying in wide circular or figure eight paths over the colony cliffs behavior called wheeling. Which is I guess like if all your single friends just gathered to do donuts in a Walmart parking lot for hours a day for months out of the year. Just like screw it. Katie, let's go and have some fun. But back to their nocturnal habits and why Jill is kind of skulking around the island at night giving out puffing friendship and clits.
Anyways, they're in their burrows. It's easier to find them. And then we can map out where their burrows are and which banded birds are in which burrow is just easier to track them is more data points. I very few people on this earth have gotten to embrace a puffing here. One of them are they cuddly when you have to handle them with permits are they soft and cuddly.
They're very soft. They're not cuddly in the slightest. They may be small, but they can pack a really mean bite. Oh really, which can leave scars and I don't blame them like this is their only line of defense. So if you can't fault them for that, but they have a really strong bill and they really are good at clipping down when they want to take a chunk out of you.
Why is that bill so bulky if they're just eating small fish? They give that quite a few fish inside to so two things social behavior wise. They use their bills for a behavior called billing, which is when they take two birds come together and basically rub their bills and tap them back and forth.
They do this as a pair bonding behavior with their mates, but they also do this with neighbors as well. Sometimes it's very fun to watch two mates that are clearly in a little billing fest and then you have a third individual kind of trying to nudge its way and it's like hello. I think some attention to this is fun. And then as well, the strength of it, I would argue is also likely due to they have to fight each other for space.
This is a cool complex social colony, which has some fun friendly behaviors, but it also means you're fighting for resources and space and you want to make sure that someone's not coming in to distill your maid or try to take your burrow that you work so hard to dig out.
Actually when they fight, it's very fun to watch. It's very entertaining. They will do this thing. You can tell puffins get angry at another puffin. They'll basically look at the other bird and open up their bill and raise their tongue slightly and they just pause in this position.
Or something bad is about to happen. And then if it escalates, they will escalate to a fight where they actually interlock bills and they fight so aggressively that they actually will interlock bills hold on to each other and rumble tumble together all the way down a slope. They do not give up.
What is that how they land and mate? Do they have to do anything like bring a pebble or fight their neighbor in order to get a lady? There's no pebbles, but I imagine the first season there's a little bit more risk-grambled to try to find a mate. But once they've established that partnership, that's pretty secure.
So they're not squabbles of the heart, but they're like neighbors getting pissy over fence lines and parking spots. I'd say burrows are more of a hot commodity to make sure that someone hasn't gotten there sooner and you have to fight someone for your burrow that you lived in last year. And you're like, that was a really nice house. I'd like to live there again this year.
And what if one dies? Do they get a new mate and inherit the same burrow? Do people do people do puffins ever use a burrow that's been abandoned? First part, if a mate dies, they will repartner with somebody else, which is a sad outcome to think about, but also your way for eight months. Who knows? I guess it's a waiting game to see if they're back when you get back in the summer.
Okay, so from late summer until early spring, puffin pairs take a break, the partways, and some of them have similar flying locations and routes, but some kind of bug off and they take a completely different path. And puffinologists aren't quite sure how they relocate their same crush year after year, but the location of their summertime breeding season, pietta tear, likely helps out a bunch. So I actually found that they will stay within a two meter radius of where they last lived.
So they're staying really close to where they lived last year. So sometimes that might mean the same burrow, and then sometimes that might be someone else has gotten there faster and they have to find a new spot, but they're sticking really close to where they've been living.
Can I ask you some questions from listeners? Sure, yeah. Okay. But before she does, let's toss some money into the sea for research as she selected the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society in Newfoundland and Labrador, which has rescued thousands of Atlantic puffins and leeches storm petrol chicks to species who are globally listed as vulnerable and more on that program in a bit and thanks to sponsors of allergies who make these weekly donations possible.
Okay, questions many of you including Spexl, Sylvia Traverio Clark Bennett Olivia Lester and Lisa Mangles Dwarf first time question asker wanted to know how human puffin diplomacy is going. Are they dangerous? Are we dangerous? Are puffins enriching uranium? Hi, Allie. This is Vanessa in Colton, California. Two years ago, I was fortunate to visit Lunga Island, part of the Treschnish Islands of Scotland.
I was able to visit a colony of the adorable puffins and one interesting thing that I noticed was the birds would come out of their little holes when people were around. They were pretty active. They seem habituated to the humans and they would go back into their little holes and hide when there were less people walking around. I was just wondering if becoming more habituated to the humans is iting their islands while their breeding is beneficial or detrimental for their colonies. Thank you.
No, it's a really good question. There's two lenses from a research standpoint and also a tourist perspective. On these islands in this reserve, they're protected areas so not anyone can just walk on. You have to have a scientific permit. The only tourist these puffins are seeing are from boats that come up and come near. But they're not stepping foot. Bo traffic is inevitable and if it's located to one place on a side where there's not, you're not harming the puffins that way.
Now being habituated is definitely a good point. There are other colonies on the island of Newfoundland that have become more habituated. There's a spot called Elliston and the puffins there are more used to humans absolutely. As for the research lens, like if we're in the blind or in the cabin, we're not bothering any birds. And then yeah, at the end of that it just is weighing us researching them and monitoring them and making sure that their populations are okay.
It's a good portion of that for a small piece of disturbance. Let's leave them be take your photos, get your zoom lens and admire from a distance. So in general, the Atlantic puffins in Newfoundland are doing okay, but elsewhere, like in Iceland, puffing populations have dropped by 70% since 1995 with warming seas, killing their food sources as a big factor.
So often hunting in Iceland was once considered sustainable, but now scientists say it is absolutely not and it contributes still to 10% of the puffing population decline. So Iceland of puffins kind of in some deep shit. They're now marked as critically endangered. Other species like the horned puffin and the rhinoceros ocular, they're listed as of least concern as is the tuffed puffin of Alaska.
But that does not tell the tuffed puffins whole story. Carly and Tanner for some question askers wanted to know why are tuffed puffin populations declining on the west coast, especially when populations seem to be doing so well in Alaska. Good question. Yes. So according to 2021 estimates, there are 553 lonely tuffed puffins in Oregon down from 5,000 in the late 1990s.
Why are these tuffed puffins kicking ass in Alaska, but succumbing on the west coast. Oh, people. So bombers like a decrease in fish populations. We got fish and nets. We got oil slicks, ocean trash and the seas warming. There's part of it. And then our species more specifically colonizers.
We introduced some predators like Arctic foxes and bears to tuffed puffin island habitats. They're like, what is this? Who are these guys? Why are they eating my babies? So yeah, it's us. It's usually us. And the Oregon Conservation Strategy website says that you can try to help tuffed puffins by not introducing any nest predators.
So don't bring any bears to islands. Also do your best to prevent oil spills in case you drive a tanker to work because there's nothing better than actual living puffins on that note. I'm shocked. There are only two people had this question. Susan, and Doug, I wanted to know any thoughts on the fact that the porgs from Star Wars were only created because there were so many puffins on Skellig Michael during the filming of episode seven. Doug says trying to fit a fun fact into a question.
And I think of puffins I think of porgs. Is this lore among other puffinologists? I have not heard this lore, but I'm also not super familiar with porgs. I need to look up what they look like actually. If you need to look it up right now, I did not fall.
And the story goes that they were filming and there are so many freaking puffins that they're like, we can't see GI these out of here. So instead we're just going to create a character that looks like a puffin that way they just look like they're so cute. They have such big mouths.
So porgs have that characteristic seabird dark back and white chest and some burnt umber colors around their eyes, but they are beacless with only kind of the whisk of a nose. So these fictional creatures, they kind of look like a puffin, but with the face of an otter pup. I mean, 10 out of 10 would foster fail an orphaned porg. Give me it. Really big eyes too. And how close is that to puffin eyes?
Puffin eyes are not that big. I feel like it's like those really cute little like baby animals you see with the really, really big, googly eyes. Right. Very, very cute. I'd say the feet look like puffins, but that's a maybe about it. Perhaps to the CGI team that were like, let's make this into our story. Would puffins even be on cliffs with the usos slopes to burrow into.
They love hanging out on cliffs. There's things called party rocks. So puffins will come and congregate on these rocks together and just socialize during the day. They burrow in the grassy areas, but these islands in the North Atlantic have really, really steep cliffs and are very rocky. So they're definitely hanging out on the cliffs.
Party rock in the house tonight. That's amazing. Exactly. Rebecca Rollings wants to know what are those bright, orange patches you mentioned to the side of their beaks. Sensory organs perhaps are they just mac and cheese colored decor? Mac and cheese colored. That's funny. I agree. The little fleshy bit I mentioned earlier is called the rosette and that's just part of their visual display.
Oh, it is just it's ornamental. Yeah. Okay. Florescence, Nick Worth, Dorit and Jen's girl Alvarez wanted to know in Jen's words, what's the purpose of having rave beaks?
They glow in UV light? What? Yeah. Yeah. Puffins can see in the ultraviolet. So this is something that they can see a lot of what we study in the visual ecology lab is trying to and it's really hard, but to place ourselves in another animal's perspective to be like, okay, well, what sort of things and what cues do they need from their environment?
I know in other bird species ultraviolet colorization is sometimes used in like nighttime foraging so they can see other birds like they're not always in their burrows at night. And also when they're underwater, they spend a great deal time. They're really good divers. Puffins can dive up to I think it's around like 50 meters deep, which is really deep.
And this probably allows them to see other puffins. There's definitely some sort of communication going on there, but definitely more studies need to be done on that. Okay. So birds have four cones in their eyes and for more on eyes and cones, you can see the ophthalmology episode. But we have three, which sucks for us. So birds have a totally different experience of color and light and they live in this hidden world of glow stick visuals that would just dazzle your friends on drugs.
So why is this happening? According to the 2019 paper photo luminescence in the bill of the Atlantic puffin, researchers note that photo luminescent properties serve a number of important roles in nature, such as deterring predators,
lowering underwater prey and signaling between individuals and that the photo luminescent parts of the bill are shed during the non breeding season, which leads scientists to infer that these glowing ultraviolet colors make other birds down to get it on or they scare away competition or they help puffins catch food for the babies.
Now, how did we come to know that they have glowing beaks? Who figured this out? So I tracked down the author of this study, one Dr. Jamie Dunning, who is a bird flu expert at Imperial College of London. And one day in 2018, he just casually tweeted a photo of this day glow blue neon beaked puffin under black light with a caption, birds have additional color cones in their retina that are sensitive to ultraviolet range.
I exposed some of my specimens to UV light that puffins, but was pretty cool. I wonder if it's related to signaling just like with a shrug. I mean, he went on to write a whole paper about it, but he was just like cool. I have tweeted more dramatic statements about parking and a sale at maces. So puffinologist, I hope you know just how impressed we all are with you. I hope you know.
In terms of behavior, Michael Brant wants to know what happens in the summer. Do they're eating and sleeping cycles change with like the extreme daylight. So we noticed there's definitely some sort of pattern here where there's like the cyclical pattern of colony attendance. So there's some days you'll go out and we're in our blind looking for the birds and there's no one. They're all gone and you're like, where did everyone go?
And then other days you're out and you can't write fast enough in your notebook to collect all your data because there's it's the slope is completely covered in in birds. And it's really hard to keep track of them all. There's work on that being done looking into what the cyclical pattern is if it's related to weather or if it's moon cycle related. But as for like the actual daylight, they're up when the sun is up and they go to bed when the sun is down unlike me. What about their intelligence?
Earl of grandma can Elizabeth Meena and Olivia Lester want to know how smart are they? Do they have a bird brain is what they want to know? Yes. Yes. Earl asked, are they puffed for brains or puffing geniuses? Well, the animal intelligence is one of those things or it really depends on what ruler you're using to measure that. Humans love to think of ourselves on the top of this hierarchy, but we're also measuring all other animals to this ruler, which is completely unfair.
I'd say puffins are awkward on land to maneuver, but brain wise, I'd say they're fairly intelligent. That they have to interact with many individuals. There's normally a correlation generally of the higher sociality an animal has, the higher intelligence, if you will. I don't know, even no intelligence is the right word to use. But I'd say they're fairly intelligent. Their brains get them to do what they need to do for their little puffing lives.
There are such long lives. I can't believe that they're around for 25 years. That's not a good chunk of time. They have guests that they were alive for like two, three years, but they don't mature until they're even five years old. They take a little while to mature and then they have about 20 years of breeding. Are they just sort of like, digging around, flying around at sea, getting to know each other, learning to fish? Yes. They're taking that time to figure themselves out.
It's more of a spiritual journey. They typically don't return back to those colonies until they're ready to breed, but there have been a few exceptions to that. But there's always an exception to everything. Well, I know that we love them, but a few people, Katie Hammond, Aaron, Celeste, Constanau, Helios, want to know in Aaron's words. Someone told me at some point that puffins are kind of cranky. Is that true or was whoever told them that jerk? No, they're definitely cranky.
Really? They look so nice. They are very cute. I think it's hard to distinguish that in that they're always cranky when they're around us, but that makes sense. We're these little lads, white light aliens coming in at night and taking them from their homes, putting an anchor on them and then returning them back. So I'd be cranky. I'd be pissed. Are you kidding? And then some jewelry you can't take off yourself. Exactly.
Do wildlife biologists ever have to worry like, oh, now that we put this anchor on them, they're being treated differently or do puffins just not care? No, definitely thought is put into that of just how big. Well, first of all, we don't want to bother the actual birds. Like we want the bands to fit on their ankle away from any joints so that they're not even going to notice them in that it's not going to hinder their movement or they're walking and they're flying.
And then they're going to get haste. Like just if they're like, oh, Bruce got a new one. Oh, I don't like this. Yeah. Oh, did they treat each other differently? No, my detention is given to each other's legs. All the social information is really in the eyes and the bill area. So I don't think they're not checking out each other's ankles. That's good. News to me, but it's a lot of questions from a ton of listeners.
Hello, patrons. I'm Amy Malia, associate Michelle Smith, Laura McLean, Lexi Cable, Peyton Henderson and Erica Coons and Dana Sprouse for some question askers asked in Erica's words, why do people throw pufflings off cliffs? How can I help do this? Dana asked, are the Icelanders really helping them by throwing them off cliffs? What? What's happening? What's with all these viral videos of people throwing baby puffins off cliffs? So, yeah, I've seen those videos too of the Icelandic puffin.
I'm assuming it's similar to a puffin patrol here. So when it's time for puffin chicks to fledge, some of them go the wrong way and make it into cities that are coast to these islands, where they're at risk of being eaten by cats or foxes or colliding with buildings. And in general, they just don't have a food source there. And so we want to take those trainings and get them back out to sea.
So yeah, the puffin and petrol patrol here does that, so they go around at night, find stranded pufflings and then release them back into the ocean. These floodlings have left the island, so they do know how to fly. So throwing them up in the air is just giving them a little boost. Puffins are really bad at flying. They're really good at diving and they're really comfortable in around the water. They're really bad at walking on land.
So they have to flap their wings really, really fast to be able to stay afloat in the air. And so anytime they even take off from the colony, they're basically walking up the slope to find a taller spot, like a steep cliff or something, and they'll just basically jump off and help use gravity to help them start flying. So throwing them up in the air is helping them, yeah. Who gets to do that? Well, Ali, if you come to Newfoundland, we can take you on the puffin and petrol patrol.
You too could throw puffins if you wanted. Oh my god. How did that so bad? Yeah, it's a really cool program. Anyone can sign up. Lots of people go with their families too, so that kids get to see puffins, drainlings, and help return them back to sea. Oh my god, no idea that was even a possibility. I'm gonna put it on your list now. I gotta put that on my list. So let's get right down to business.
Michaela Marshall wants to know why are they the smelliest animals at the zoo and autumn nul wanted to know why do they poopy so ellipses violently. And it Thompson wants to know if a puffin colony stinks so does Aaron Christie. What kind of smells we dealing with? Very stinky eargones. I don't know if you can tell them before you see them. It's a mixture of their fishing and the discarded parts of the fish that they're not eating are left to rot in the sun.
The rocks as their toilet and kitchen all at once. So yes, they're very stinky. Anyone who's worked on a seabird colony knows that that smell will be forever permanently ingrained in their brain. Yeah, I was gonna say like just Dr. Braun. Yeah, right into the laundry machine. You're in the shower. Things are being washed immediately. Yes. Do they poo in their burrows or no? The chicks will. So they often have like a little toilet space for the chick. Their burrows are very tidy.
A lot of the times the adults will do their business out on the slope. I will say this is anecdotal, but I see almost like nine or ten times. The first thing they do in the morning is they waddle out of their burrows, fattles, and they'll step out onto their foie. And then lift their little butts up in the air and take their morning poo and then go on their way. And if that's not relatable, I don't know what it is. They have a tiny, tiny cup of coffee and then they're like, whoop, ready to go.
Gotta go. Yeah. Is it violent? Would you say that the velocity of it is violent? There is a proportion, proportion. Oh, that's so hard. It's all liquid. So it is, I feel like liquid travel a little further faster than it's all this. I know this is a terrible segue, but let's get to eating. Bjorn Fredberg wanted to know, are they tasty? Did Charles Darwin eat any and write about it? He was part of some kind of society they wanted to try and eat every kind of animal. That sounds like Darwin.
It sounds, he's like, gotta get him on my mouth. Kelly, do you want to know what's up with those dogs, Brett for puffin hunting, Hanagori, Naomi Jame, and Elders Amora all wanted to know. Like, are they taste, do they taste kind of fishy? You mentioned that they've got a really work to fly. I imagine they're probably all dark meat. I don't know. Eating puffins, eating puffin eggs was a scoop. The scoop is you can't do that in Canada. So I have not tried puffin.
I've got lots of comments on my videos being like, hmm, puffins are so tasty. Okay, thanks for sharing. They used to be hunted and the eggs were collected. But yeah, that hasn't happened for a while now. And they are protected species. At least on the side of the Atlantic, no one is eating puffins. Or at least you shouldn't be. And if you are, I'm gonna come find you and you'll be in trouble. But I have no idea what they taste like.
So according to reports of puffin eaters, the meat is dark and gamy and salty and like a pastrami made out of liver. Those are the tasting notes. So honestly, some people are like, no thanks, I'm good. But it's still legal to hunt puffins in parts of Northern Iceland, where older generations also like to root out the heart and eat it raw as a delicacy. And then we'll typically smoke the meat kind of like a jerky.
So if you absolutely have to eat puffin, you can hit a Iceland before it's entirely illegal. Because it's really not good news up there. Otherwise, you know what, just settle for like some a dried smokey mushrooms or eat some cat food. But don't kill any puffins in shill's territory. You could be on a puffinologist's shit list. You're like, I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. You guys are not catching one and roasting it in your, in your seaside cabin. That's not happening. Don't you dare.
Yeah. I can imagine. Well, speaking of eating, you know, a ton of people, including Lee Wang, Lizzie Martinez, Laurenceybert, so many people wanted to know what's the story with Barbara's puffin cereals. Also, do you have a favorite? There is a puffin cereal that's available here. Yeah, slaps. What do you think about that? Not to influence you, but she's pretty good, right? I've only, yeah, a little ad in here for Barbara's puffin cereal. You hold me. I've only tried the meatball. It's a flavor.
And it was good. I will say in a mini-weights fan though. I'm not switching ships, but yeah. The idea that puffinologists only eat puffins for breakfast. It's a little presumptuous, to be honest. We're multifaceted, okay, guys? Maybe Barbara just loves puffins. Who knows? So according to lore, it wasn't Barb who loved puffins. But an employee who, 30 years ago, saw some puffins in Alaska and rightfully became obsessed.
And this employee just began seeing all objects only in terms of their relations to puffins. So a puffed corn cereal, puff, puffins. Also, if you were to go to Alaska, maybe you have a cereal to name. You would see tufted puffins, which have these blonde bangs that curl behind their ears, kind of like rams horns, or the horned puffin, which has over its eyes, upright spikes during the breeding season. Spikes over its eyes, horny decor for horny birds.
And patron Duane Tollifzred asked, would puffins be as endearing if they had a different name, like the horned squat, or the Atlantic mukbuss in Duane? I think you should apply for a job at Barbara because you have a knack for naming. Those are great. I'll be curious to know. What about pop culture? Is there any representation of puffins in the media? Good or bad that either make, like, you're so excited about you, cringe?
Yes. So there is a puffin in Elf, the Christmas movie, and that scene where he's with the narwhal, and the narwhal is like, oh, everybody, who people are gonna have. There's a puffin in that team. And he's really cute. Hey, buddy, wanna fit two small berries? Not now, Arctic puffin. There's at one moment where his both his eyes are on the same side of his head, which anatomically is not correct, but it's also a clay puffin. So I can't pull them too much.
The other reference that a lot of people mentioned to me is there's a kid's TV show called Puffin Rock. I have one gripe with it in that it just follows this puffin family, and they have two children, which is not accurate. They only raised one chick per year. And on top of that, the youngest little one is pure white, which is not true of puffins. Puffin chicks are almost fully blacked down. They have like a little white belly, but they're definitely like 90% black in color and not white.
But I get it. For the storytelling, it's okay. They should send you a written apology, though. Just saying. I wouldn't say no. Last listener question, Autumn Nol, Jennifer Fro, Denny, a lot of people, including Susan Gottlieb and Tasha Garrison, Hazel, Marley Moss, Novikiu, R.J. Doige, Lauren Ends, Sarah King, Nikki Jervitz, and Jacqueline Church, who asked, and then pleaded, why are they so adorable? And please don't let them be awful, like otters. Still not over that reveal.
So you can see the lute chronology episode on otters to break your heart. But yeah, puffins. And Denny's words, why are they so cute? Can I give them a little kiss on their heads? Autumn wants to know, do we know that they love them? Jennifer Fro wants to know, why do I love them so much? Anything sociologically? Why do I love them? Why do we love them so much? I think the bright colors are the contrast of the black and white. They're really small.
They're wearing a black and white tuxedo, and they have bright orange booties in this beautiful bill. And what is not to love about that? I thought she meant orange butts, and then I realized she meant small boots, which is fine. And Denny, without a permit, cannot give them a little kiss on their heads. That's not legal. Yes, sorry Denny. Sorry Denny. They also would not like that at all. They would like that. Maybe get a little chunk of your nose bitten off. That's not good.
Autumn Noel, do they know that we love them? I don't think they care. It sounds like they're pretty grumpy, and they don't want to see you. Pretty much. I think so. You've done it up there. Like you. This is a dust pair of social relationships. This is the thing. Yeah. Okay, so we're saying about the job. You've described. Shitting El Fresco. You've described. Coming home and having to take like a radioactive shower. And also declining populations. What's the hardest thing about your job?
About being a puffinologist. Something's got to suck. I am someone who really likes getting eight hours of sleep a night. And the sleep schedule we have is we never get to sleep eight hours in a row. You sleep for four hours. You get up and you do four hours and you go back and take a little nap. And then you do another four hours. And you just kind of repeat through this cycle. So in the summer months, it is a privilege to be on these islands, to be studying this animal.
But I will say a small part of my feeble humanist is that I just want to fall nights sleep sometimes. The other eight months out of the year. Are you just 12 hours a day? I'm packing the sleep in. Nine hours of my lucky. Yeah. What's the best? I feel like it's so cliche to say I can't pick one. There are several. I think it's really cool to be so removed from civilization and get to be in such a wild space that. You're just away from humans, which is really nice.
And you get to see an ecosystem that is just thriving on its own and doing its own thing. That goes hand in hand with the fact that not many people have gotten to experience these islands in the ways. That the small amount of researchers have. And I really try not to take that for granted. They're beautiful islands. They're absolutely gorgeous.
It's a bit of a culture shock going from so much isolation and puffins, puffins, puffins to then back into the real world with cars and human interactions. And yeah, you kind of got to switch part of your brain on it. What a great excuse though if you didn't get back to someone in time. Just be like, I'm so sorry I was not a remote island. Sorry I was not island. I have used that before. Shamelessly. Oh sorry, I was on a remote island setting puffins. Sorry to see you now.
Dude, I would be setting that from my couch at home on days that I didn't want to go out. Well, I don't know which days I was in the field and which days I wasn't. Perfect excuse. Just a burrow of one's own. Any advice for anyone that wants to become a puffinologist? You really got to be okay with strong smells but also just existing with bird shit on you. You're getting pooped out. Like it's you're getting fired on from the skies. Like it's constant. The air traffic is constantly above you.
So you're getting it from that angle. And then if you're doing any kind of burrow checks, their burrows are tied to you. They're so civilized, but there's still little poop piles in there and the mud is sludgy and they all kind of just melds together on your arm and this lovely little paste of God knows what. So yeah, you have to be comfortable being dirty and some people have quite a phobia and I can understand why of like things flying above you in large numbers.
If you do not like birds, then do not become a puffinologist. That's pretty obvious. There's a lot of birds. A lot of birds in the job. This is amazing. You're the only puffinologist I know. You're also my favorite one. Thank you, Ally. I got to throw some babies off some cliffs. So ask adventurous people ignorant questions because sometimes the answers are not so simple. Do follow Jill Taylor on Instagram and TikTok.
We have linked her pages right in the show notes and she's wonderful on both platforms. We are at allergies on Instagram and X. I'm an alleyward on both. Ally has just one L. Smaller Gs again are shorter kid friendly versions and they have pealed off to become their own show. So that's linked in the show notes. So please tell your friends with kiddos or anyone who needs shorter clean versions. We're super happy to launch. We hope more people know about them.
Thank you to Aaron Talbert who admin's the allergies podcast Facebook group and congrats to my bonus little brother, her actual brother Tom on tying the knot this week. I've known him since he was a two year old. Avalon Malik and the wordery makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwyer does the website. No all the word schedules. The shit out of interviews as our scheduling producer.
Susan Hale manages and directs the whole thing as managing director Jake Chafee is our new additional editor and lead editor who would never throw any babies off a cliff. Unless it was a puff and his Mercedes-Mateland of mainland audio Nick Thorvern wrote the theme music and if you stick around until the end of the episode. I tell you secret and while I was trapped in the Salt Lake City airport for nine hours yesterday waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago, which was so late.
I was sitting in this giant open space smack in the middle of the airport surrounded by a bunch of people on their phones and laptops. A lot of heavy size, tired business travelers and this abandoned piano behind me suddenly I hear someone sit down and bust out really melancholic classical music. No sheet music just from memory just tinkering around while I'm sitting there in an oversized blazer crying.
So to the lovely girl who braved a terminal full of strangers to go tinker on those keys made me whole day. If you see an empty piano somewhere and you know how to play it, please do because you never know if there's a lady drinking a warm soda saying, hey man I needed that. Okay, bye.