I captured only two images of this Atlantic Puffin with fish as it flew in from the ocean with a mouthful of food for its chick. A split second later, the Puffin disappeared into the dark burrow to feed that huge beak full of slippery fish to its unseen chick. I wish I could have seen the chick as it devoured this meal. Puffins typically only have one offspring per year, so that’s an enormous meal for one chick!

Atlantic Puffins are pelagic for most of the year, spending their time alone in the cold open northern ocean a long way off shore.  They dig a burrow or tunnel on an island to lay their one solitary egg. Puffins only  come onto land to breed in colonies, usually with the same partner  in the same burrow, every spring and summer.  They bring fish back to the burrows to feed the little “puffling”.  The Atlantic Puffin are brightly colored only during breeding season and since breeding season is the only time they are visible it works out perfectly for photographers!