Atlantic puffin holding a wild iris in his beak in Elliston, Newfoundland, Canada

Atlantic puffin in Elliston, Newfoundland, Canada

As morning breaks over Elliston, a small seabird appears with a wild iris held across its bill. The scene looks almost like a gift, yet biologists say Atlantic puffins are not known to offer flowers to their mates during courtship. The colourful bill, which becomes brightest in the breeding season and fades later in the year, helps make the photograph memorable. Even their feet turn brighter.

Across Canada, puffins breed mainly on the coasts and islands of Newfoundland and Labrador. They spend most of their lives on the open Atlantic and return to land to raise a single chick in a burrow or rocky crevice. Both parents incubate the egg and deliver food. Their diet consists largely of capelin, sand lance and other small fish, which they catch underwater by using their wings as paddles. Puffins can even carry several fish at once, using backward-pointing spines on the tongue and palate to keep their catch from slipping away.