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All Those Fish in a Puffin's Beak
The collection all goes back to the nest
© Tristan Ferne CC
Puffins fly under water into schools of slender fish, filling their large beaks. Fish are wedged into the gape, the stretchy skin at the beak hinge, but the bill edges still line up neatly. The dangling fish won’t slide out because the puffin’s tongue and roof of the mouth are heavily lined with backward-angled spines. When its beak is full, the adult flies back to its nest and feeds it all to a single chick.
BirdNote®
All Those Fish in a Puffin’s Beak
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
Birds feed their families in a variety of ways. Baby chickens and ducklings are left to peck and forage on their own from the time they hatch. Ospreys fly in with fish in their talons. Albatrosses regurgitate a rich, fishy liquid. And then, ... there are puffins.
[Atlantic Puffin call, https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/216892#_ga=2.127141646.206962470.1590…, 0.04-.08]
Puffins fly under water into schools of small, slender fish, snatching them in their large beaks. A puffin catches one fish, then another and another. The fish hang crosswise in the beak, sometimes dozens of them. Finally, the adult flies back to its nest—often miles away—to feed its payload to a single chick.
[Atlantic Puffin nestling begging, https://www.xeno-canto.org/479182, 0.17-.21]
[NatureSFX 027 surf/distant]
But how do all those fish stay in the beak as the puffin goes on catching more?
Credit goes to what’s called the gape. It’s a piece of stretchy skin where the beak hinges. Fish can be wedged into the gape, but it’s so flexible that the bill edges still line up neatly. Even as the puffin opens its beak to catch more, the dangling fish won’t slide out because both the strong tongue and the roof of the mouth are heavily lined with backward-angled spines.
It’s an image no nature photographer can resist—a puffin holding its fresh catch of silvery fish in that huge, colorful beak. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to make that possible.
[Atlantic Puffin call, https://www.xeno-canto.org/479184, 0.00-.03]
For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.
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Atlantic Puffin call provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York recorded by Bob McGuire. Atlantic Puffin nestling begging and Atlantic Puffin call provided by Xeno Canto, recorded by Stanislas Wroza. NatureSFX 027 surf/distant recorded by Gordon Hempton.
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2020 BirdNote October 2020 / September 2022 Narrator: Mary McCann
ID# puffin-03-2020-10-29 puffin-03
https://asknature.org/strategy/beak-holds-multiple-fish-simultaneously/
https://blog.lauraerickson.com/2014/12/more-about-bird-tongues-than-nor…
Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Mary McCann
NarratorSights & Sounds
