Puffin Carrying Sand Eels for Its Chick, Faroe Islands. (IMAGE) Pew Charitable Trusts, Ocean Science ...

A PUFFIN plays a beaky blinder by stuffing its mouth full of sand eels. The bird was unlikely to go hungry after it was seen carrying half a dozen fish, freshly caught in the North Sea.

Puffin numbers on the islands peaked at 55,674 pairs in 2003 before a sudden crash to 36,835 in 2008 a due to an extremely low number of sand eels.

A greedy puffin in Skomer Island Pembrokeshire, the UK holds a large number of sand eels in its beak before returning to its nest to enjoy the tasty meal.

Puffin food fight goes to court RSPB Puffins rely heavily on sand-eels for their diet Paul Murphy Environment Correspondent Reporting from East Yorkshire 28 January 2025 ...

They could find an egg, the unpleasant squelch of puffin droppings, or worse, the sharp peck of a beak, which is all part of the surveying experience for the 14-strong team.

Columnist and Environment A spat over sand eels threatens puffins and other iconic seabirds Overfishing of small fish has led to population declines in the birds that feed on them.

Most people who’ve never seen a puffin in real life expect them to be about the size of a penguin or a large seagull, but puffins are actually much smaller. They typically measure about 28 cm ...

Measuring puffin numbers is difficult, said Bevan. Sometimes it will be easy to spot one of the birds, returning to nests with a sand eel clamped in its beak, but puffins are often underground.

Puffin numbers on the islands peaked at 55,674 pairs in 2003 before a sudden crash to 36,835 in 2008 a due to an extremely low number of sand eels.