Now You See Us

Dipping and soaring, we fly through skies of rippled blue, eyes fixed upon the ocean. Constantly shifting shape and focus, waves churn up spume which land like snowflakes on the shore. To the distant eye, we appear like specks of grey in the sky.

Playing at Peekaboo. Now you see us, now you don’t.

Sometimes called “parrots of the sea,” we’re not all we seem. Flying at speeds of up to 55 miles, our wings beat extra hard as we wait for the sea to calm. Other times we avoid the tumult by ducking and swimming underwater. Using our wings and feet as paddles, we can dive down two hundred feet, or more. Then, rising triumphant, our notched beaks are filled to the brim with small fish held in place by scaly tongues. At night, when we’re not diving or flying, we float like bobbing corks.

Out here in the vast Atlantic, you could be forgiven for failing to recognise us. No longer the lovable clowns of the sea, our colours have faded, the layers of our beaks peeled back to grey. Having discarded our sociable natures for solitary ones, we’re relatively safe from predators. Unless the weather turns extreme (and out here, there are no guarantees), our feathers protect us from the worst of the cold. Eight months of the year, we live like this. Compelled to migrate, we cover hundreds of miles to get close to food. The more challenges we face, the further we migrate.

But all that is about to change. With Spring approaching, our internal clocks reset, and we are pulled in quite another direction. From now on, we are driven to return to our natal home.

Home, where our mate awaits and where every year, we aim to fledge another of our kind.

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Their first encounter was brief and, on the wing, but even in drab wintry garb, he had a certain something. She longed to catch sight of him in his glorious breeding colours later in the year, but in the meantime, all Hillie, the female puffin, could do was shoot an invisible arrow to his heart and hope it landed.

Not surprisingly, the male puffin whose name was Billy, had been unable to forget the exuberant Hillie, and the second time the two met was much better than the first. Somehow, she had survived a stormy winter, the rising seas and uncertain weather, and had finally made it back to the clifftop, where surrounded by a cacophony of bird calls, she waited expectantly.

Up on that tussocky clifftop with its high ledges and narrow valleys leading down to the sea, Hillie’s thoughts briefly turned to the vagaries of human nature. To a large extent, the puffin colony had grown used to these mostly well-intentioned creatures who popped up with rucksacks and long lens cameras as they traipsed makeshift pathways to get a glimpse of bird paradise. They were mostly respectful, but the odd one could prove unpredictable. Generally, so long as humans didn’t go putting their hands in the nest burrows, puffins regarded them with an air of tolerant amusement. It’s never a good idea to touch a puffin because it can damage the waterproof layer their feathers have to keep them warm at sea.

^•^ ^•^

Truth to tell, Hillie was starting to feel like a bit of a gooseberry with so many of her neighbours engaged in courtship rituals. It was the familiar dance that was a prelude to mating, after which a pair would disappear into a burrow which they hoped would remain home for many years, ideally for life.

By now, Hillie’s agitation was growing. She feared Billy had been snatched by one of the awful great black-backed gulls that flew across the skies or had got caught in a gill net, where unless rescued by humans, birds would struggle for hours before drowning. She could only ignore the persistent ticking of her internal clock for so long. If he didn’t come soon, she’d be forced to look elsewhere.

Just as Hillie was about to give up, a creature with vivid black feathers, white frontage, and a brilliant orange beak and waders, flapped into view. He was at his physical peak, and Hillie fluttered at the sight of him. It didn’t matter that his arrival was announced by a classic belly flop landing typical of the species. Puffins might be expert flyers and swimmers yet seeing them walk on land is like watching a comedy of errors. In spite of their strong feet, they are perhaps more vulnerable on land and that may be why they spend so much of their lives at sea. Hurriedly correcting his clumsiness, Billy now stood tall, puffing out his feathers in an impressive display, on a nearby rock.

Seeing the object of his desire, he waddled over and emitted a little piglike grunt, waving his head back and forth. Up close, the sight of those dark blue eyes with the distinctive red ring round the irises, set Hillie’s pulse racing all the more. To a human observer, the smudging round a puffin’s eyes makes them look as if they’re wearing mascara, and the long shadow extending to the back of the head, lends a certain soulfulness.

For Hillie, the eyes and iridescent beak had everything she was looking for and the spark was reignited.

Determined not to let her out of his sight now he’d found her amongst the thousands of birds gathered on the cliffs, Billy spread out his wings and began a melodic cawing which some might liken to the sound of a muted chainsaw or a cow’s mooing, but to Hillie’s ear sounded invitingly melodic. The pair rubbed beaks amorously. The male puffin’s bill was now a vivid fluorescent orange with white and blue bars, designed to attract attention, and he would long continue his amours by flicking his head in an enticing, albeit slightly manic parody of puffin love-play.

Two heads waved comically, oblivious to the fact that their antics were attracting quite a crowd (members of a puffin colony are naturally curious and like to check up on one another’s progress). However, immersed as they were, they were unaware of everything except the pleasure of being together. Continuously rubbing beaks, they soon reached a frenzy of avian passion.

Eventually, they forced themselves to pull apart and get down to the more serious business of checking out the burrow. After kicking away any loose dirt at the entrance, the pair began a thorough inspection. Having been neglected during the wintry months, a number of home improvements were needed. While Hillie set to work tidying every corner, Billy went off in search of new materials to reline the nest. He certainly had his work cut out. Every so often a wind knocked the bundle of twigs, leaves, and grasses he carried in his beak to the ground, but undeterred, he kept on going.

Finally, after hours of preparation, which included sorting out the bedding and setting up a toilet area (very important for such clean-living birds), things had been arranged to the satisfaction of both, and they decided to take a well-earned break. While resting, Hillie felt the familiar wobbly sensation that meant her egg was being prepared and shelled inside her. In a few hours, it would be ready for laying in a chamber in the burrow.

^*^ 🥚 ^*^

This was Hillie’s third egg, and it was important all went well as puffins only lay one egg a year. Prior to this, there had been a number of mishaps. Sadly, the first egg had not worked out and had been discarded. The following year while Billy was out at sea searching for fish, and Hillie had taken a short break from incubating the egg to preen her feathers, she’d heard a telltale scurrying. When she turned round to confront the intruder, the egg had gone. Suspecting a rat, there was nothing she could do. The puffins dreaded the arrival of rats which in the past had almost wiped out the colony by taking the eggs. Over a number of years, humans had been spotted putting down poison, and now the puffin colony had largely recovered its numbers.

A crestfallen Hillie could only learn from the past and hope for the best. That meant not giving up and trying again.

That was why in a precarious world, selecting the right mate was so important. In spite of their setbacks, Hillie knew Billy would support her. She had seen how fierce he could be when he his dander was up. Any intruder who got too near would get the “pelican walk.” Coming from a usually friendly puffin, the walk was more than a little menacing.

^*^ ^*^

The creamy white egg had to be maintained so the pair took it in turns to keep it warm, and search for suitable fish at sea. Fortunately, this time there was an adequate supply. More often than not, the hunting parent would return with a mouth crammed with herrings, sand eels, sprats, and crustaceans for which to feed one another, and the chick when it arrived.

In Hillie’s case, thirty-nine days after laying the egg, she felt movements within. Gently rolling off, she put her face near the egg and heard the puffling’s calls. A day or two later, a chip formed in the eggshell. Then, after more cracking, a little beak pecked open the entire shell, and the creature stepped out.

The puffling was a tiny ball of charcoal fluff with its eyes fully opened at birth. Seeing his helplessness, Hillie’s maternal nature kicked in. Keeping a watchful eye on her chick, she knew the next five or six weeks, maybe longer if they couldn’t find enough food, were crucial. During that time, the chick would be dependent on its parents.

Skulking shyly at the burrow entrance, Billy waited. When he got the nod of approval, he drew close and carefully placed some of the fresh fish into the chick’s open beak. The rest he deposited on the floor to be eaten later. The little family fed well that day and nuzzled up close. Between them, the proud parents took it in turns to look after their puffling, regularly flying out in search of yet more food. 

They called the chick Puffle, and as he grew stronger, Hillie instinctively moved the burrow’s toilet nearer to the entrance. She had seen older puffins do this in a bid to get their chicks to become independent and finally venture out.

^*^ ^*^

One night when his parents were asleep, Puffle waddled to the burrow entrance and stepped out onto the cliff. A thick fog had rolled in blanketing the air in a ghostly veil. As he left the safety of the burrow to begin adulthood, he felt alone. However, the urge to fledge and make a life for himself was proving too strong to ignore.

While Billy slept quietly, head tucked under his wing, something had disturbed Hillie. Maybe it was the rustling from Puffle’s departure, maybe a mother’s sadness at knowing she has to let go, or some unknown primal instinct, but when she opened her eyes, the chick had gone.

Wading into the dark, Puffle’s excellent vision rapidly adapted to the night. Above him, the stars glimmered stretching out like a band across a vast expanse of inky blue. As yet, Puffle was an innocent, unaware of the existence of nocturnal predators. He kept a steady pace until he had almost reached the edge of the cliff. Then taking a deep breath, he paused and practiced flapping his wings, gathering momentum for the long flight ahead.

^*^ ^*^

In a flash, a great black-backed gull appeared out of nowhere, its huge wings slicing through the air. Before Puffle had time to register what was happening, the creature had seized him in its claws. In the background, he heard his mother’s anguished cries as she rose in the air calling on him to fight back for all he was worth. Hillie wanted her son to know that contrary to their cute appearance puffins can be ferociously brave, and that it’s better to die fighting, however small you are. Puffle responded by wriggling and pecking furiously, but the gull had him firmly in its grip and he could not escape.

Not able to get close enough to launch an attack, Hillie looked on in horror as the gull ascended still higher. She tried chasing but the gull was too fast.

Suddenly, her eyes widened as a streak of shimmering silver shot leaping though the air and crashed into the gull. In a second, the startled bird let go of its intended meal. Puffle found himself tumbling through the air, hardly able to believe he’d been saved from a miserable fate by a fish that seemed to have sprung out of nowhere and vanished just as quickly. Without thinking, Puffle’s little wings caught the wind, and took over. Every sense was heightened as he experienced the exhilaration from his first ever flight. In the distance, Hillie watched breathlessly until her son was only visible as a tiny dot. After his brush with death, she was confident he’d learn quickly. After all, there’s so much more to puffins than meets the eye.

Hillie never knew why the flying fish had chosen that precise moment to spring up as a lucky symbol from the sea, but she returned to the burrow sighing with relief. She’d have so much to tell Billy, and all the other puffins about what she’d just seen.

The trouble was she wasn’t sure they’d believe her.