A bit comical? Don't laugh too much though - puffins have a pretty tough life (From Bournemouth Echo)

A bit comical? Don't laugh too much though - puffins have a pretty tough life

7:00am Thursday 2nd July 2009 in

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Puffins are elusive characters. The distinctive black and white birds spend most of their lives out at sea, only returning to the coast to breed.

“Most will spend the winter in the channel, some might even go as far as the Bay of Biscay,” says Ali Tuckey, a ranger at Durlston Country Park, home to the most easterly colony of puffins on the south coast.

“They will go where there are plenty of fish and will sleep on the water.”

According to Ali, when the chicks fly from their nests at Dancing Ledge, which is in the park, they might not return to land for up to five years.

“They have a pretty tough life out at sea,” he admits. “It makes them very difficult to study,”

Their mysterious behaviour has prompted scientists in Northumberland to fit GPS transmitters to some of the birds on the Farne Islands, where numbers appear to be declining. A survey last year revealed the puffin population on the island had dropped by one-third since 2003. However, while puffin numbers across Britain are in decline, the small colony at Dancing Ledge has remained stable.

“Down in Dorset the puffins are doing okay,” says Ali.

“It’s only a small colony – there are about 18 birds down here with five breeding pairs, but it’s the most easterly colony on the south coast.

“We do seabird surveys every year to monitor the numbers and we think that colony has been pretty stable for about 20 years or so.”

Nevertheless, it is still difficult for Ali and his colleagues to monitor Dorset’s puffins.

“Unlike most puffin colonies in Britain, which dig burrows to live in, the ones in Dorset live in a natural fault in the cliff,” explains Ali.

“Unless you see a chick leaving the ledge it’s difficult to know whether they are breeding or not.”

But last year Ali was fortunate enough to witness such a sight: “I saw a puffin chick leave the ledge for the first time. He was led out to sea by its dad, it was very exciting.”

It is out at sea where the puffin really excels.

“If you look at them on land they look quite comical and awkward,” says Ali. “However underwater they are like little torpedoes – they cut through the water really fast and can dive up to about 60 metres”

As well as boasting a puffin colony, Dorset also has a host of other seabirds.

“Along the coast here we’ve also got important breeding colonies of guillemots and razorbills,” says Ali.

“Recent surveys have shown that the guillemot colonies in Dorset are some of the most productive in the country.”

But the same can’t be said for the kittiwake, which is in sharp decline across the UK.

“In spring the birds need small fish to be fairly near the surface and concentrated in one area,” says the RSPB’s Tony Whitehead.

“We’ve had a series of unsettled springs, which means the plankton has been distributed throughout the water. In response to that the fish have also distributed throughout the water so there are fewer fish at the surface.

“This is causing enormous problem for kittiwakes and the same thing could be happening to puffins elsewhere.”