Puffin in Winter time Scotland (1 Viewer)

Hi everyone,

I saw an Adult winter Puffin 30th of December 2012 in Irvine/Ayrshire/Scotland.
I can't find anything about the status of wintering puffins in the UK so anyone know how scare Puffins are during wintertime? The latest sighting I could find of a puffin in the previous 3 years was 11th of December.
here the link to my sighting:
http://observado.org/waarneming/view/72878380

Happy new year!

Cheers,
Rik

Caledonian said:

Hi everyone,

I saw an Adult winter Puffin 30th of December 2012 in Irvine/Ayrshire/Scotland.
I can't find anything about the status of wintering puffins in the UK so anyone know how scare Puffins are during wintertime? The latest sighting I could find of a puffin in the previous 3 years was 11th of December.
here the link to my sighting:
http://observado.org/waarneming/view/72878380

Happy new year!

Cheers,
Rik

Click to expand...

Pufins are more pelagic than Guillemots in winter, and are rarely seen from the shore at this time, at least in the North Sea. The all-time record day counts from Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire from November to February are 76, 31, 3 and 1,550 respectively. In 'The Status of Seabirds in Britain and Ireland' it says that in winter Puffins are widely distributed throughout the North Sea, but present in lower densities than other auks, and this is reflected in the low numbers of Puffins washed up during wrecks, see e.g. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00063658409476822 . Puffins from colonies in West Scotland and probably Ireland move out into the North Atlantic in winter, so again are going to be rarely seen from the shore during this period.

Razorbills, though usually present in small numbers, are also much more rarely seen than Guillemots from North Sea coasts in winter, though they are much commoner on the South coast.

Brett

There's been some research done recently using geolocators which shows that they have a wide dispersal in winter. The young birds head off from the colonies before the parents, so they don't go to the same places as the parents and make up their own route which becomes strengthened year on year depending on good winter food supplies.

Have a look at this: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021336

Thanks a lot for all the comments!! I will have a look on the links! So A puffin in december should be a rather good sighting! Very interesting to see about where the puffins are during winter time!

Cheers,
Rik